Public radio has always been so powerless.

I'm a very straight-laced, conservative news kind of guy.

With radio, the listener absorbs everything.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but a lot of ignorance is just as bad.

I go home by noon, and I'm in bed by 6 p.m. I get up at 1 and do it again.

I used to listen to the soap operas with my grandmother.

I wake about 1 a.m. I'm in the office by 2 a.m. We're on the air at 5.

Any outfit that has to beg its listeners for money is an organization that has to constantly please its listeners or it will dry up and go away. It shouldn't work when you think about it.

Public radio has always been so powerless.

I think we're doing the right things for the right reasons. We're not doing it to sell products. We're not doing it to be popular. We're doing it because in our judgment these stories are important to do, and at this length and this much depth.

When Solomon said there was a time and a place for everything he had not encountered the problem of parking his automobile.

But when you see personal artifacts relating to - by genealogy at least - a living human being, it was just more impressive to me than just about anything I've ever read about slavery before.

In college, I got interested in news because the world was coming apart. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's right movement. That focused my radio ambitions toward news.

It's also a more personal medium. It seems to go directly to one's brain. There are no pictures to distract.

I got to know every format of every station and who was on and what time.

I wanted to be one of the voices in the box.

Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen.

People are always ready to admit a man's ability after he gets there.

Good things just keep happening.

In my case, the listener is often in an automobile driving to work. You can concentrate on the road while still getting an audio message that can be riveting.

I've never been able to predict the future of anything.

Never exaggerate your faults, your friends will attend to that.

The pictures are created by the listener, with a little help from the broadcaster. The pictures are perfect. If you're showing pictures, different things in that picture can distract from the spoken word.

At a tiny station in New Albany, Indiana, which is right across from the river from Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up. The Louisville stations were loath to hire beginners, so I had to go across the river.

I was encouraged to read aloud in class and vocalize.

If you want anything done well, do it yourself. This is why most people laugh at their own jokes.

The radio was my pal. I was just crazy about it.

Between 2 and 5 I'm reading in to find out what's been going on while I've been asleep.

I'm still excited at being at a microphone and talking to listeners. I love that. It's the most basic element of what I do and I still enjoy it very much.

Nobody cares about your wardrobe, what your tie looks like, or even if you're wearing one, and I don't.

Some are pre-taped interviews because maybe we can't get that person live or maybe we're not sure it's going to work out right so we tape it an hour in advance.

That's the problem with news interviews, you work your tail off to get prominent figures in the news on the radio, but once they've been on, the event passes, the urgency, the issues you talked about evaporate.

Meanwhile, the meek are a long time inheriting the earth.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves.

Public discussions are part of what it takes to make changes in the trillions of graphics published each year.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

I give everything I have to give on the screen. I feel I don't owe the public anything else.

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

My art became very public.

Depending on what day of the week it is and what time of the month it is, I'm a good friend or not a good friend. I'm more or less a good mom or not a good mom, more or less a good mate or not a good mate. That's just life, whether or not you're public.

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

Yesterday in this country we had people die of hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of this country, the infant mortality rate rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have a public education system that ranks below that of almost any other Western nation.

Don't try to be somebody you're not because it doesn't work. If you try to be this perfect person or perfect persona of what you think that somebody should be when they're involved in public office, it's just not going to work. Just be yourself, stay true to your core values, and really just stay abreast of the issues.

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

It was he who impressed, time and again, the necessity of singing as nature intended, and - I remember - he constantly warned, don't let the public know that you work. So I went slowly. I never forced the voice.

In the coming days, I know there will be some reflecting on my time as mayor. Many of you will search to find what's behind my decision. It's simple. I have always believed that every person, especially public officials, must understand when it is time to move on. For me, that time is now.