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 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.

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

It was so much fun to have the freedom to wander America, with no assignments. For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself.

In television, everything is gone with the speed of light, literally. It is no field for anybody with intimations of immortality.

It was cold out there, bitter, biting, cutting, piercing, hyperborean, marmoreal cold, and there were all these Minnesotans running around outdoors, happy as lambs in the spring.

I'm not any kind of social reformer.