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Rereading A.J. Liebling carries me happily back to an age when all good journalists knew they had plenty to be modest about, and were.

Russell Baker

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Russell Baker
Age: 93 †
Born: 1925
Born: August 14
Died: 2019
Died: January 21
Autobiographer
Journalist
Writer
Morrisonville
Virginia
Russell Wayne Baker
Birthday
Journalist
Plenty
Rereading
Knew
Happily
Age
Journalists
Back
Carries
Good
Carrie
Modest

More quotes by Russell Baker

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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 town to reach it.
Russell Baker
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Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
Russell Baker
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There are no liberals behind steering wheels.
Russell Baker
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The Government cannot afford to have a country made up entirely of rich people, because rich people pay so little tax that the Government would quickly go bankrupt. This is why Government men always tell us that labor is man's noblest calling. Government needs labor to pay its upkeep.
Russell Baker
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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.
Russell Baker
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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
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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.
Russell Baker
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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
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There's so much spectating going on that a lot of us never get around to living.
Russell Baker
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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
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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 floors, dining-room tables, park grass, parlor sofas, or packing crates, entwine warm thighs around them, and pant in ecstasy.
Russell Baker
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Reality is the only obstacle to happiness.
Russell Baker
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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 the children.
Russell Baker
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Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat, speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women, narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.
Russell Baker
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Live by publicity, you'll probably die by publicity.
Russell Baker
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The people who are always hankering loudest for some golden yesteryear usually drive new cars.
Russell Baker
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Skins tanned to the consistency of well-traveled alligator suitcases.
Russell Baker
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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.
Russell Baker
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Children rarely want to know who their parents were before they were parents, and when age finally stirs their curiosity, there is no parent left to tell them.
Russell Baker
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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.
Russell Baker