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.

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

I don't think one should ever come to my stage of life and have to look back and say, Gosh. I wish I hadn't spent all those years doing that job I was never really interested in.

You never heard anybody ask 'Elvis who?'

That was the overwhelming thing to me, the joy of carrying my portable typewriter to an event and trying to describe it.

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.