I would love to write something that people would still read 50 or 100 years from now. That comes with growing older, I think.

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

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.

Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.

When we become a really mature, grown-up, wise society, we will put teachers at the center of the community, where they belong. We don't honor them enough, we don't pay them enough.

The greatest thing you can do in life is to tell a young boy or girl that they're 'the very best' at something - baseball, reading, art. That gives them the wonderful feeling that they can do anything, which they can!

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