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

You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.

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.

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

I had a little insight into life that most kids probably didn't have. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was a social worker. Through his eyes I saw the underside of society.

To read the papers and to listen to the news... one would think the country is in terrible trouble. You do not get that impression when you travel the back roads and the small towns do care about their country and wish it well.

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people.... We are a nation rich in rivers.