Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.

You know, most reporters can't go back to the towns they wrote stories about. I never wrote that kind of story.

I made friends with a lot of those who could have criticized me in print and who didn't, who praised me instead.

Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.

It takes an earthquake to remind us that we walk on the crust of an unfinished planet.

TV critics, who traditionally hate television and make their living writing about it, often didn't like what I did on the air.

Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students.