Russell Baker Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• New York is the only city in the world where you can get run down on the sidewalk by a pedestrian.

  Russell Baker

  Running, New York, Cities

  8 Copy quote

• Television was the most revolutionary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward.

  Russell Baker

  Discovery, Class, Television

  Russell Baker (1991). “There's a Country in My Cellar”, Avon Books

  8 Copy quote

• Caution: These verses may be hazardous to your solemnity.

  Russell Baker

  May, Solemnity, Caution

  8 Copy quote

• The old notion that brevity is the essence of wit has succumbed to the modern idea that tedium is the essence of quality.

  Russell Baker

  Essence, Ideas, Quality

  Russell Baker (1991). “There's a Country in My Cellar”, Avon Books

  5 Copy quote

• Humans treat time as a map and always know where they are located on it and respond with the appropriate emotion.

  Russell Baker

  Maps, Emotion, Treats

  4 Copy quote

• There are no liberals behind steering wheels.

  Russell Baker

  Wheels, Steering, Behinds

  Russell Baker (1992). “Poor Russell's almanac”

  4 Copy quote

• The best thing about being President is that it gets you out of American life. I don't know what the theory is behind this, but it is a fact. The first thing we do with a President is shunt him off to a siding where nothing American can ever happen to him.

  Russell Baker

  President, Firsts, Facts

  Russell Baker (1983). “So This Is Depravity”, Pocket Books

  4 Copy quote

• How many more years will our educators continue to lecture us on the evils of whipping children until they bring home high grades? Year after year we listen to these fellows tell us that it is not the grade that counts but the development of the child's personality. After the lecture they go back to all the best schools and reject our children because they have C averages.

  Russell Baker

  Education, Children, Home

  Russell Baker (1992). “Poor Russell's almanac”

  5 Copy quote

• Windows 95 is what Rube Goldberg would have designed if he'd studied cartooning at M.I.T.

  Russell Baker

  Inspirational, Window, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• It takes great self-confidence to write a newspaper column. Some might say it takes arrogance. Be that as it may, my willingness to pronounce on a great many matters of which I have little or no knowledge is one of my prime qualifications for this trade.

  Russell Baker

  Writing, Self Confidence, Arrogance

  8 Copy quote

• Urban people, of course, are terribly scared nowadays. They may yearn for society, but it is risky to go around talking to strangers, for a lot of reasons, one being that people are so accustomed not to have many human contacts that they are afraid they may find out they really prefer life that way.

  Russell Baker

  Talking, People, May

  Russell Baker (1983). “So This Is Depravity”, Pocket Books

  5 Copy quote

• Scientists have been struck by the fact that things that break down virtually never get lost, while things that get lost hardly ever break down.

  Russell Baker

  Science, Facts, Breaking Down

  “The Plot Against People” by Russell Baker, www.ign.com. April 14, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

• A skillful playwright might have a good time with the story of the assassination of President William McKinley, and especially with the three most flamboyant political figures involved: Mark Hanna, Theodore Roosevelt, and Emma Goldman.

  Russell Baker

  Political, President, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• Few expected very much of Franklin Roosevelt on Inauguration Day in 1933. Like Barack Obama seventy-six years later, he was succeeding a failed Republican president, and Americans had voted for change. What that change might be Roosevelt never clearly said, probably because he himself didn't know.

  Russell Baker

  Years, President, Might

  4 Copy quote

• Except for politics, no business is scrutinized more exhaustively than journalism.

  Russell Baker

  Journalism

  9 Copy quote

• A man doesn't amount to something because he has been successful at a third-rate career like journalism. It is evidence, that's all: evidence that if he buckled down and worked hard, he might some day do something really worth doing.

  Russell Baker

  Successful, Men, Careers

  5 Copy quote

• The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him.

  Russell Baker

  Men, Goal, Inanimate Objects

  8 Copy quote

• The lobbies of the new hotels and the Pan American Building exhale a chill as from the unopened Pharaonic tombs... And in their marble labyrinths there is an evil presence that hates warmth and sunlight.

  Russell Baker

  Hate, Evil, Labyrinth

  Russell Baker (1964). “No Cause for Panic”

  5 Copy quote

• Now scarcely a week goes by without a news story about the cops swooping down on some adolescent prowler who is as skilled at breaking into computer systems as defense contractors are at breaking into the Federal budget.

  Russell Baker

  News Stories, Modern Life, Defense

  4 Copy quote

• The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb.

  Russell Baker

  Dirty, Government, Political

  Russell Baker (1992). “Poor Russell's almanac”

  4 Copy quote

• I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.

  Russell Baker

  Lonely, Loneliness, Years

  9 Copy quote

• A day spent praising the earth and lamenting man's pollutionist history makes you feel like a superior, sensitive soul.

  Russell Baker

  Men, Soul, Earth

  5 Copy quote

• Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century.

  Russell Baker

  Literature, Trios, Novelists

  4 Copy quote

• Unpleasant questions are being raised about Mother's Day. Is this day necessary? . . . Isn't it bad public policy? . . . No politician with half his senses, which a majority of politicians have, is likely to vote for its abolition, however. As a class, mothers are tender and loving, but as a voting bloc they would not hesitate for an instant to pull the seat out from under any Congressman who suggests that Mother is not entitled to a box of chocolates each year in the middle of May.

  Russell Baker

  Mother, Years, Class

  4 Copy quote

• Skins tanned to the consistency of well-traveled alligator suitcases.

  Russell Baker

  Consistency, Skins, Suitcases

  4 Copy quote

Page 4 of 6

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin