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,… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
The early commentators who put down the pre-presidential Roosevelt as an empty-headed young lightweight, all ambition and no talent, now seem comically wrong to a modern book-reading, movie-going, television-watching, legend-loving American public conditioned to think of him as one of… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
Unpleasant questions are being raised about Mother's Day. Is this day necessary? . . . Isn't it bad public policy? . . . No… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
The people who are always hankering loudest for some golden yesteryear usually drive new cars. — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear you the way you want to be heard. — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century. — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
After two years studying what rewrite men did with the facts I phoned them, I knew that journalism was essentially a task of stringing… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
American foreign policy had still not recovered from its victory over communism when George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice took over at the White… — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
When you're the only pea in the pod, your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope diamond. — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
Ireland really is my problem; the breaking point of the huge suppuration which all British and all European society now is — Russell Baker Copy Share Image
