It wasn't until the late '70s that a lot of people knew me.

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.

I don't know many people, if any, who have had some straight line toward success. I mean, they start here, they work hard, they've got what it takes, and they just go straight to the top over some number of years. Most people get a little failure.

And on election night I'd go down to city hall in El Paso, Texas and cover the election. In those days, of course, we didn't have exit polls. You didn't know who had won the election until they actually counted the votes. I thought that was exciting too.

I wanted to be in this business, and once I got into the business I knew I enjoyed it, and I liked it, and I wanted to continue, but I never had a five year plan.

If you have a setback, and you're not doing well and then you overcome it somehow, it always sticks with you. You know it could happen again.

You really get the most out of sweet corn if you pick the corn off the stalk and rush it to a pot of boiling water. The longer you wait, the more sugar you lose. But if you get it in the first half hour, that is the sweetest corn ever.

The truth is, when I got started in this business, it wasn't because I had a full understanding of the importance of the business, but because I thought it was fun. I found it exciting. It fulfilled me, whatever it was that I was looking for.

And from a military school which taught me that to fit into society, you can't just do anything you damn well please because it will suit you. And that it's much better to be with the winners than it is with the losers.

I can't tell you what that little ingredient is which makes that first person want to go on and aggressively do more, and the other person be content to not do that. It's a mystery, but it does happen.

Some days the competition would beat me and I'd go home thinking awful thoughts, want to hide under the bed, depressed. But of course, in the news business, when you're working a daily news broadcast, you get your victories and defeats every day.

But in 1941, on December 8th, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, my mother bought a radio and we listened to the war news. We'd not had a radio up to that time. I was born in 1934, so I was seven years of age.

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.

My mother gave me a push. If I hadn't had her, maybe I wouldn't have had the push. If I hadn't gone to military school, maybe I wouldn't have decided to get with the program. Maybe I'd be running a bulldozer, rather than going on and doing something more.

My mother did all she could to control me, but at age 14 she sent me to a military school.

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.

News conferences are the only chance the American public has to see Ronald Reagan use his mind.

It was kind of exciting being on the radio. Not everybody was on the radio.

But as a young kid, I never did, really have an ambition to be a farmer. I never thought, gee, I would like to farm, and I want to raise these crops. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do.

I didn't come east of the Mississippi for the first time in my life until I was 26 years of age, but I knew. I read magazines, I listened to radio, I watched television. I knew there was something out there, and I wanted a part of it.

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.

Well, I was born in El Paso, Texas, it was in the nearest hospital to the family farm.

It wasn't until the late '70s that a lot of people knew me.

But I guess the lesson is this: If you don't have confidence in yourself and think that you are worth hiring, or whatever it is, you can't expect anyone else to.

But my observation has been, certainly in the news business, you've got to give 110 percent.

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

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.

DJs and people in the street know what they like.

People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.

Some people are directors and I think they should stay behind the camera.

We dominated Survivor - there is no way we would not dominate that, too. I can see it already, us making deals with people. That's the best part, and with the Race, it would be even more fun because I've got a lot of tricks up my sleeve.

I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.

Well concerning the world records that I did, I think it helps a lot to me, yeah. I think it's a very individual thing because I heard some people say, like, oh I don't like it at all. But I definitely, for me it really made a big difference.

My goal is, of course, for this show to do well, and I would love it if people liked it.

I hate wasting people's time.

Religions get lost as people do.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

My theory is if you have a religion, it's a good one. Because some people don't have any at all.

It's sometimes shocking to find out what people really believe in.

That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

I guess I strike people as very serious, or very intense.