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

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?

America is a great story and there is a river on every page of it.

I don't think I had a reputation as a hard worker, but inside I was always being eaten up by the pressures.

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.

A country so rich that it can send people to the moon still has hundreds of thousands of its citizens who can't read. That's terribly troubling to me.