I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

A country so rich that it can send people to the moon still has hundreds of thousands of its citizens who can't read. That's terribly troubling to me.

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.

Now that I look back on it, having retired from being a reporter, it was kind of romantic. It was a wonderful way to live one's life, just as I imagined it would be when I was 6 or 7.

The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.

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.

You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.

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

The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.

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.

Just by luck, I picked good heroes to worship.