I could tell you which writer's rhythms I am imitating. It's not exactly plagiarism, it's falling in love with good language and trying to imitate it.

What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well, or the bell, or the stone walls, or the crisp October nights or the memory of dogwoods blooming. Our loyalty is not only to William Richardson Davie though we are proud of what he did 200 years ago today. Nor even to Dean Smith, though we are proud of what he did last March. No, our love for this place is based on the fact that it is as it was meant to be, the University of the people.

I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.

I would like to explore some side roads in life while I am still in good health and good spirits.

I can't say that I've changed anybody's life, ever, and that's the real work of the world, if you want a better society.

The Mississippi River carries the mud of thirty states and two provinces 2,000 miles south to the delta and deposits 500 million tons of it there every year. The business of the Mississippi, which it will accomplish in time, is methodically to transport all of Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico.

I used to think that driving, sleepless, ambitious labor was what you needed to succeed.