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.

I had a tight stomach all the time. I actually developed ulcers. I've learned better than to put all that internal pressure on myself.

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.

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

TV critics, who traditionally hate television and make their living writing about it, often didn't like what I did on the air.

The storytelling tradition that you bring from the South, I don't know where it arose, but it's still there. You can't go to the feed store, or the country courthouse without running into storytellers.