 The first books I was interested in were all about baseball. But I can't think of one single book that changed my life in any way. |
| In television, everything is gone with the speed of light, literally. It is no field for anybody with intimations of immortality. |
| I suppose I was a little bit of what would be called today a nerd. I didn't have girlfriends, and really I wasn't a very social boy. |
| I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading. |
| My parents encouraged me in everything I ever wanted to do. |
| 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. |
| There is such a thing as a national conscience, and it can be touched. |
| 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 don't have any well-developed philosophy about journalism. Ultimately it is important in a society like this, so people can know about everything that goes wrong. |
| For a while there, I was a stringer. The expression comes from the old habit of stringing together the column inches that you had written. They'd measure it and pay you 10 cents an inch for your printed copy. |
| 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. |
| My mother, at least twice, cancelled our family's subscription to the newspaper I was working on, because she was so mad about its treatment of my father. |
| It's best to leap into something you know you love. You might change your mind later, but that is the privilege of youth. |
| I can't say that I've changed anybody's life, ever, and that's the real work of the world, if you want a better society. |
| 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. |
| Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. |
| I think I'd have done better if I had been a little more relaxed-if I had not pressed quite so hard, if I'd not lost quite so much sleep. |
| I'm not any kind of social reformer. |
| We always take credit for the good and attribute the bad to fortune. |
| Look for joy in your life; it's not always easy to find. |
