I was afraid you had deceased,' he said. 'Or gotten engrossed in a long book.

Where I come from, when a Catholic marries a Lutheran it is considered the first step on the road to Minneapolis.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Roy Blount's stuff makes me laugh so hard, sometimes I have to go sit in a room and shut the door

Ralph Stanley is like an uncle to us and now that all my uncles are gone, Ralph's singing is even more precious. This album of classic folk songs is one of his best.

Growing up in a place that has winter, you learn to avoid self-pity. Winter is not a personal experience, everybody else is just as cold as you, so you shouldn't complain about it too much. You learn this as a kid, coming home crying from the cold, and Mother looks down and says, 'It's only a little frostbite. You're okay.' And thus you learn to be okay. What's done is done. Get over it. Drink your coffee. It's not the best you'll ever get but it's good enough.

TV news is as bloody as Shakespeare but without the intelligence and the poetry. If you watch television news you know less about the world than if you drank gin out of a bottle