I gained a great appreciation for what I would call the collective achievement of the country. I began thinking of America as a much more just and humane place than I would have thought if I'd been covering the civil rights struggle.

It is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country?

There are a lot of people who are doing wonderful things, quietly, with no motive of greed, or hostility toward other people, or delusions of superiority.

I think all those people I did stories about measured their own success by the joy their work was giving them.

You never heard anybody ask 'Elvis who?'

I didn't know what narcissism was until I beheld my own naricssus.

America is a great story and there is a river on every page of it.