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.

What you need for breakfast, they say in East Tennessee, is a jug of good corn liquor, a thick steak and a hound dog. Then you feed the steak to the dog.

Just by luck, I picked good heroes to worship.

I remember being in the public library and my jaw just aching as I looked around at all those books I wanted to read. There just wasn't time enough to read everything I wanted to read.

There is melancholy in the wind and sorrow in the grass

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.

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