I didn't have the ambition to be a broadcaster. I was going to be a newspaper reporter the rest of my life, but that opportunity came along.

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

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?

A true Southerner will never say in 2-3 words what can better be said in 10-12.

I think all those people I did stories about measured their own success by the joy their work was giving them.

I did stories about unexpected encounters, back roads, small towns and ordinary folk, sometimes doing something a little extraordinary.

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.