I didn't like the competitiveness of big-time journalism.

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

You know, most reporters can't go back to the towns they wrote stories about. I never wrote that kind of story.

I'm not any kind of social reformer.

I gained a great appreciation for what I would call the collective achievement of the country. I began thinking of America as a much more just and humane place than I would have thought if I'd been covering the civil rights struggle.

I don't think one should ever come to my stage of life and have to look back and say, Gosh. I wish I hadn't spent all those years doing that job I was never really interested in.

I used to think that driving, sleepless, ambitious labor was what you needed to succeed.