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.

There are a lot of people who are doing wonderful things, quietly, with no motive of greed, or hostility toward other people, or delusions of superiority.

I don't know what makes a good feature story. I've always assumed that if it was a story that interested or amused me, that it would have the same impact on other people.

I would love to write something that people would still read 50 or 100 years from now. That comes with growing older, I think.

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.

I made friends with a lot of those who could have criticized me in print and who didn't, who praised me instead.

For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself. So they were always about somebody I like, 'cause if I didn't like him, I just didn't do the story. And to have somebody else paying the bills for this tourism, to every corner of every stage, over and over again? Why, who wouldn't want a job like that?