So when I cover the president, I try to remember two things: First, if you don't ask, you don't find out; and second, the questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.

The questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.

I was a typical farm boy. I liked the farm. I enjoyed the things that you do on a farm, go down to the drainage ditch and fish, and look at the crawfish and pick a little cotton.

Call me a braggart, call me arrogant. People at ABC (and elsewhere) have called me worse. But when you need the job done on deadline, you'll call me.

I'd rather work with someone who's good at their job but doesn't like me, than someone who likes me but is a ninny.

Let's face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there - they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American!

I saw a large, red dried swath that I immediately identified clearly as blood. I covered the war in Vietnam. I saw a lot of it [blood] there.

And really, the basis, I think, of achieving some success in what I want to do today comes from my mother's push to get me to read and to make something of myself from the standpoint of an education.

There was a little bit of ham in me. And there's a lot of people say there's a lot of ham in me.

As I went to college, I went into radio and television. Now I suppose most people think that's one step ahead of basket weaving as a major in college, but it was part of the journalism department.

If you sent me to cover a pie-baking contest on Mother's Day, I'm going to ask dear old Mom why she used artificial sweetener or stole the apples!

Just because The Past always hung there upon its hooks on the game-room wall, you didn't have to pull it down and use it on yourself.

Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

It's how you look at beauty. Is it only an outward appearance with hair and makeup and a hot body, or is it something deeper than that?

A news organization has a much different responsibility. I might not be telling you the whole story. I might not be telling you a story in a manner that is properly sophisticated.

I would hate to make music and people love me for something that isn't me.

It is not impossible to rule Italians, but it would be useless.

I miss sometimes the buzz of America. A sense that anything can change at the drop of a hat. In a way, it's an exhausting thing to live with.

Everyone has to make their own decisions. I still believe in that. You just have to be able to accept the consequences without complaining.

I love songwriting. It's second to my love for singing in how I express myself.

You can't create a monster, then whine when it stomps on a few buildings.