When I worked in Los Angeles covering hard news, very often when something important would happen I'd be off in the woods covering something unimportant, which was more interesting to me.

Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students.

The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.

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

It's that enthusiasm, that passion for what you're doing, that is most important.

The storytelling tradition that you bring from the South, I don't know where it arose, but it's still there. You can't go to the feed store, or the country courthouse without running into storytellers.

Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.