Russell Baker quotes - page 4

Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century. (Russell Baker)
Strategic thinkers were naturally rattled to find this outsider fooling around with their work. They had been thinking strategically when Reagan was just another movie actor playing opposite a chimpanzee, for heaven's sake. They think Reagan is too naive, too innocent, to grasp the intellectual complexities of cold war strategy. View quote
Russell Baker
Gerald Boyd was a classic specimen of the self-made man. Born poor, he worked and studied his way up out of poverty under the guidance of his widowed grandmother. View quote
Russell Baker
The best discussion of trouble in boardroom and business office is found in newspapers' own financial pages and speeches by journalists in management jobs. View quote
Russell Baker
American foreign policy had still not recovered from its victory over communism when George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice took over at the White House in 2001. View quote
Russell Baker
Letter writing was clearly important to Reagan. Even as president he kept dashing off letters to friends, pen pals, media people, statesmen, critics, and the kind of people who write to presidents never expecting a reply. View quote
Russell Baker
Serious journalism need not be solemn. View quote
Russell Baker
The American press has the blues. Too many authorities have assured it that its days are numbered, too many good newspapers are in ruins. View quote
Russell Baker
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. View quote
Russell Baker
Journalism talk is part of the nonstop background noise of American life. View quote
Russell Baker
Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses. (Russell Baker)
The people who are always hankering loudest for some golden yesteryear usually drive new cars. View quote
Russell Baker
The worst thing about the miracle of modern communications is the Pavlovian pressure it places upon everyone to communicate whenever a bell rings. View quote
Russell Baker
It was dramatic to watch my grandmother decapitate a turkey with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with gourmet status. View quote
Russell Baker
It is fitting that yesteryear's swashbuckling newspaper reporter has turned into today's solemn young sobersides nursing a glass of watered white wine after a day of toiling over computer databases in a smoke-free, noise-free newsroom. View quote
Russell Baker
Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glorious piece of inspirational rhetoric and just as gloriously wrong. View quote
Russell Baker
It's always seemed odd to me that after a group of terrorists commits a vile and odious deed they rush messages to the public to claim credit for it. View quote
Russell Baker
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. View quote
Russell Baker
A man writing a letter is a man in the act of thinking, and it was an exercise Reagan obviously enjoyed. After his first meeting with Gorbachev, for example, he sent a 'Dear Murph' letter about it to his old friend George Murphy, a former senator and actor who had once played Reagan's father in a film. View quote
Russell Baker
Research is a scientific activity dedicated to discovering what makes grass green. View quote
Russell Baker
Anything that isn't opposed by about 40 percent of humanity is either an evil business or so unimportant that it simply doesn't matter. (Russell Baker)
There is a growing literature about the multitude of journalism's problems, but most of it is concerned with the editorial side of the business, possibly because most people competent to write about journalism are not comfortable writing about finance. View quote
Russell Baker
You can always tell folks from nonfolks. Folks like to feel good, like to smile for the camera when there's a big photo opportunity for a really good cause. View quote
Russell Baker
There's so much spectating going on that a lot of us never get around to living. View quote
Russell Baker
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. View quote
Russell Baker