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

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.

There is such a thing as a national conscience, and it can be touched.

The first books I was interested in were all about baseball. But I can't think of one single book that changed my life in any way.

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.

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?