It's best to leap into something you know you love. You might change your mind later, but that is the privilege of youth.

Just by luck, I picked good heroes to worship.

I would love to write something that people would still read 50 or 100 years from now. That comes with growing older, I think.

When I was a little boy I used to borrow my father's hat, and make a press card to stick in the hat band. That was the way reporters were always portrayed in the movies.

What you need for breakfast, they say in East Tennessee, is a jug of good corn liquor, a thick steak and a hound dog. Then you feed the steak to the dog.

I didn't like the competitiveness of big-time journalism.

And still I wander, seeking compensation in unforseen encounters and unexpected sights, in sunsets, storms and passing fancies.