I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.

I saw how many people were poor and how many kids my age went to school hungry in the morning, which I don't think most of my contemporaries in racially segregated schools in the South thought very much about at the time.

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

And still I wander, seeking compensation in unforseen encounters and unexpected sights, in sunsets, storms and passing fancies.

I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

It is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country?