I would like to explore some side roads in life while I am still in good health and good spirits.

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?

It was so much fun to have the freedom to wander America, with no assignments. For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself.

The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.

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?

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

It's best to leap into something you know you love. You might change your mind later, but that is the privilege of youth.