Kids in Alaska don't know they're growing up on the Last Frontier. It's just what they see on the license plates, and it's something tourists like to….

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers..

For some people, you know, Garrison Keillor, Rush Limbaugh, really the stars, they've got a passion. They eat, drink and breathe radio, and I'm not l….

You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one..

Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be t….

The media is in the business of finding exceptions to everyday life. Bad things are still the exception. That's good, because once bad things stop be….

It's not like Alaska isn't wilderness - it mostly is. But most Alaskans don't live in the wild. They live on the edge of the wild in towns with schoo….

That's what the American odyssey is really about: Leaving home. Leaving home and coming home, and trying to understand the difference..

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh..

I'm real. I believe what I'm saying. If Motel 6 wasn't the type of operation they say it is - and I stay at them when I travel - I wouldn't do their ….

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson..

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am..

In the America I see from here, anything is possible - especially the impossible..

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for..

People feel vulnerable when they travel. Nobody wants to be taken advantage of or talked into something they don't want. Staying at Motel 6 makes you….

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting..

Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time..

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it..

I'm not an impersonator. I've only got one voice and only do one guy and his first-person essays..

Somebody says, 'Do a Tom Bodett, a folksy kind of thing,' and it sounds like something out of 'Hee Haw,' very insulting. They turn wry humor into dis….

I'm happy to report you still get nothing you don't need at Motel 6, and, therefore, you don't have to pay for it. I don't need valet parking. If I c….