Russell Baker
Russell Baker
Russell Wayne Bakeris an American writer known for his satirical commentary and self-critical prose, as well as for his Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography Growing Up. He was a columnist for The New York Times from 1962 to 1998, and also hosted the PBS show Masterpiece Theatre from 1992 to 2004...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMemoirist
Date of Birth14 August 1925
CityMorrisonville, VA
CountryUnited States of America
news-stories defense modern-life
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.
empty-mind people brain
Of all the people expressing their mental vacuity, none has a better excuse for an empty head than the newspaperman: If he pauses to restock his brain, he invites onrushing deadlines to trample him flat. Broadcasting the contents of empty minds is what most of us do most of the time, and nobody more relentlessly than I.
honesty cities left
Watergate left Washington a city ravaged by honesty.
men people life-is
While it is very sturdy of comfortable men to point out that life is unfair, the people it is unfair to are not apt to be morally or philosophically elevated by the announcement. If you are going to preach that unfairness is inescapable for some, good sense suggests that you also accept the inevitability of beastly behavior by people who have to carry the burden.
background-noise journalism backgrounds
Journalism talk is part of the nonstop background noise of American life.
men soul earth
A day spent praising the earth and lamenting man's pollutionist history makes you feel like a superior, sensitive soul.
father writing exercise
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.
jobs office speech
The best discussion of trouble in boardroom and business office is found in newspapers' own financial pages and speeches by journalists in management jobs.
fall long ears
What sweeter words can fall on the human ear? It's going to be May all week long.
inspirational window ifs
Windows 95 is what Rube Goldberg would have designed if he'd studied cartooning at M.I.T.
president firsts facts
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.
lessons recipes next
Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the proper recipe, invariably designated "the lesson of history.
thinking who-i-am clothes
I frankly admit to not knowing who I am. This is why I refuse to buy clothes that will tell people who I want them to think I am.
country men people
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.