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Portrait of Russell Baker

Russell Baker

(1925–2019) Autobiographer United States

145 quotes in 987 categories

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Russell Baker was an autobiographer from the United States, best known for Growing up.

Quick Facts About Russell Baker

Born: August 14, 1925
Died: January 21, 2019
Nationality: United States
Profession: Autobiographer
Notable works: Growing up

About Russell Baker

Russell Baker was an American journalist, narrator and writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his satirical commentary and for his autobiography Growing Up in 1982. He wrote a column for The New York Times for 36 years and hosted eleven seasons of the PBS series Masterpiece Theatre.

Awards & Honors

Pulitzer Prize for Biography George Polk Award Pulitzer Prize for Commentary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honorary doctor of the University of Miami

Quotes by Russell Baker · Page 2

Serious journalism need not be solemn.

Journalism

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Reality is the only obstacle to happiness.

Happiness

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The common law is nothing else but statutes worn out by time

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In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

America

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

Earth

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A solved problem creates two new problems, and the best prescription for happy living is not to solve any more problems than…

Happiness

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The charm of television entertainment is its ability to bridge the chasm between dinner and bedtime without mental distraction.

Ability

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Newspaper people, once celebrated as founts of ribald humor and uncouth fun, have of late lost all their gaiety, and small wonder.

Comedy

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When you're the only pea in the pod, your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope diamond.

Child

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People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.

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Objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost.

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

Books

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Letter writing was clearly important to Reagan. Even as president he kept dashing off letters to friends, pen pals, media people, statesmen,…

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I worry about people who get born nowadays, because they get born into such tiny families--sometimes into no family at all. When…

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Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glorious piece of inspirational rhetoric and just as gloriously…

Declaration

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It's good for the soul to hear yourself as others hear you, and next time maybe, just maybe, you will not talk…

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Skinny women don't enjoy being told they're skinny nowadays. They enjoy telling you how they got that way, as though starvation were…

Achievement

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Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the…

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What the New Yorker calls home would seem like a couple of closets to most Americans, yet he manages not only to…

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There was scarcely a woman alive, it seemed, who could resist the urge to haul men down onto beds, car seats, kitchen…

Alive

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Most English speakers do not have the writer's short fuse about seeing or hearing their language brutalized. This is the main reason,…

Attitude

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Unpleasant questions are being raised about Mother's Day. Is this day necessary? . . . Isn't it bad public policy? . .…

Abolition

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Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is…

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The early commentators who put down the pre-presidential Roosevelt as an empty-headed young lightweight, all ambition and no talent, now seem comically…

Ambition

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A man writing a letter is a man in the act of thinking, and it was an exercise Reagan obviously enjoyed. After…

Actors

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We honor ambition, we reward greed, we celebrate materialism, we worship acquisitiveness, we commercialize art, we cherish success and then we bark…

Ambition

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“When speaking aloud, you punctuate constantly — with body language. Your listener hears commas, dashes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks as…

Body language

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While it is very sturdy of comfortable men to point out that life is unfair, the people it is unfair to are…

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Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in…

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A railroad station? That was sort of a primitive airport, only you didn't have to take a cab 20 miles out of…

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Research is a scientific activity dedicated to discovering what makes grass green.

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Ireland really is my problem; the breaking point of the huge suppuration which all British and all European society now is

Breaking point

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

Cities

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

Brevity

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It is safest to shut up and pay, which is what I shall eventually do, though I shall hate having to sell…

Children

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People who say you're just as old as you feel are all wrong, fortunately.

Age

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Baltimore is permissiveness. The pleasures of the flesh, the table, the bottle, and the purse are tolerated with a civilized understanding.

Baltimore

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What sweeter words can fall on the human ear? It's going to be May all week long.

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The people who are always hankering loudest for some golden yesteryear usually drive new cars.

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Every day and in every way, baseball gets fancier. A few more years and they'll be playing on oriental rugs.

Baseball

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Russell Baker by topic

People (19) Journalism (14) Men (11) Life (10)