I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a reporter. I don't know where I got the idea that it was a romantic calling.

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

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.

If there are bleachers in heaven and a warm sun, that's where you'll find Bill Veeck.

It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.

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

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