Time & Perspective Quote by Charles Kuralt

Kuralt’s line pivots on a small confession with a quiet sting: the dream came first, the explanation never arrived. “I can’t remember a time” isn’t just nostalgia; it’s myth-making, the origin story journalists love to tell about themselves. He casts the impulse as innate, almost fated, then immediately undercuts it with “I don’t know where I got the idea,” as if the romance he attached to reporting was a contagious cultural script he caught without noticing.

That second sentence is doing the real work. “Romantic calling” is both sincere and faintly self-mocking. Kuralt, who made a career out of humane, lyrical American storytelling, is admitting the profession’s seduction: the fantasy of being the person who goes, sees, and returns with meaning. The subtext is that journalism isn’t naturally romantic; it’s made romantic by movies, newsroom lore, and the intoxicating idea that witnessing equals virtue. His “I don’t know” signals a mature awareness that this enchantment is partly manufactured.

Context matters: Kuralt came up in a mid-century era when broadcasting and print still carried institutional prestige, when “the reporter” could plausibly be framed as a public servant with a front-row seat to history. The quote reads like a late-career glance back from inside the machine, affectionate toward the old spell but alert to its naivete. It’s a gentle deflation, not a renunciation: he’s acknowledging that the romance was real enough to propel a life, even if its source was more cultural propaganda than personal insight.