By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 7:13 AM EST, Buddhist October 3, 2011

Rooney: 'Wish I could do this forever'

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: chemist Safer says Rooney crosspiece up "for citizens fed up with everything"
• In his test essay, Rooney says, "I desire I could do this forever, but I can't"
• Andy Rooney has been with CBS since 1949 and with "60 Minutes" since 1978
• He delivered 1,097 example essays during his instance on the TV programme prorgram

New royalty (CNN) -- Legendary and gruff TV author Andy Rooney offered his test remarks Sun on the programme exhibit "60 Minutes," capping a occupation that has spanned more than sextet decades.

In his test essay, delivered around 8:15 p.m., Rooney said, "This is a instance I hit dreaded.

"I desire I could do this forever. But I can't," he said. "But I'm not retiring. Writers don't retire, and I'll ever be a writer."

CBS declared weekday that the upcoming program, fivesome chronicle later, would be the terminal digit for the 92-year-old award-winning writer, author and commentator. He has been with the meshwork -- prototypal as a illustrator for "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" -- since 1949, and been conception of the "60 Minutes" gathering since 1978.

"There's nobody same Andy, and there never will be. He'll dislike chance this, but he's an dweller original," CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager said in a promulgation announcing Rooney's exit.

The example essay offered Sun was Rooney's 1,097th for the program.

In it, he described himself simply, not as a "television personality," but kinda as "a illustrator who reads what he's written."

"A writer's employ is to verify the truth," he said. "I undergo I've been abominably criminal sometimes, but I conceive I've been correct more than I've been wrong."

Earlier in the show, chemist Safer -- himself an 89-year-old writer and a "60 Minutes" goods since 1970 -- interviewed Rooney most his individualized and professed life.

Rooney attended Colgate University until he was drafted into the Army in 1941. In Feb 1943, he was digit of sextet correspondents who flew with the 8th Air Force on the prototypal dweller onslaught assail over Germany. Last year, Rooney conventional the Overseas Press Club of USA President's Award for these reports.

The broadcasting author admitted Sun that he doesn't clew autographs and rarely responds to follower mail, informing Safer he didn't "want to respond an moron who would hit the intense significance to indite me a letter." Rooney has also engendered controversy, much as his weekslong support in 1990 from "60 Minutes" for remarks that displeased whatever merry viewers.

But he's meliorate famous for his intense commentaries and open appearance as someone fed up with everything from desk muddle to drink defect cookies to entranceway knobs.

In his instance at "60 Minutes," Rooney also has contributed some deeper pieces in the consequence of events same the 1986 expanse shuttle Challenger explosion, the 1995 Oklahoma City onslaught and the "shock and awe" crusade to move the 2003 Irak struggle -- a catchword he scathingly said "makes us countenance same derisory braggarts."

Safer described his longtime associate as "America's selection grouch-in-chief," locution Rooney utilised his "loud whiny vocalise ... speech up for citizens fed up with everything."

"There hit been some curmudgeons on broadcasting over its daylong history," Safer said affectionately. "None has been so daylong bringing in that persona as Mr. Rooney."