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
school poetry poetry-is
Poetry is so vital to us until school spoils it.
education children school
How many more years will our educators continue to lecture us on the evils of whipping children until they bring home high grades? Year after year we listen to these fellows tell us that it is not the grade that counts but the development of the child's personality. After the lecture they go back to all the best schools and reject our children because they have C averages.
school yale ivy
Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets.
american-journalist break classified major objects
Objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost.
audiences comedy dead laughter records situation television thrived using
Situation comedy on television has thrived for years on "canned" laughter grafted by gaglines by technicians using records of guffawing audiences that have been dead for years.
life walking
Life is always walking up to us and saying, ''Come on in, the living's find,'' and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.
among begin black court enjoying gold julie lesson nixon people silver supreme taught
Those people who taught Hubert Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the black
funny sarcastic people
People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.
running new-york cities
New York is the only city in the world where you can get run down on the sidewalk by a pedestrian.
anywhere becomes enriches except inevitably law life seems wallet whatever
It seems to be a law of American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic
best creates happy living problem problems solved
A solved problem creates two new problems, and the best prescription for happy living is not to solve any more problems than you have to.
billion dollars few man office poor thirty twenty undergoing wire
So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can't even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom!
age carries good happily knew plenty
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.
calling cavalry guys referring student warriors
Can't anything be done about calling these guys student athletes? That's like referring to Attila the Hun's cavalry as ""weekend warriors