Just by luck, I picked good heroes to worship.

What you need for breakfast, they say in East Tennessee, is a jug of good corn liquor, a thick steak and a hound dog. Then you feed the steak to the dog.

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

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.

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.

My parents encouraged me in everything I ever wanted to do.

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