The lobbies of the new hotels and the Pan American Building exhale a chill as from the unopened Pharaonic tombs... And in their marble labyrinths there is an evil presence that hates warmth and sunlight. Russell Baker More Quotes by Russell Baker More Quotes From Russell Baker 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 hate pay children Television was the most revolutionary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward. Russell Baker class discovery television In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses. Russell Baker opiates sports america The American press has the blues. Too many authorities have assured it that its days are numbered, too many good newspapers are in ruins. Russell Baker ruins newspapers authority Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev. Russell Baker war culture people American foreign policy had still not recovered from its victory over communism when George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice took over at the White House in 2001. Russell Baker victory white house Letter writing was clearly important to Reagan. Even as president he kept dashing off letters to friends, pen pals, media people, statesmen, critics, and the kind of people who write to presidents never expecting a reply. Russell Baker media writing people 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 dozen escaping dream My natural instinct after doing something shameful is not to rush into the street boasting about it but to put on dark glasses and head for the next county, hoping nobody notices I've been in the neighborhood. Russell Baker natural-instinct glasses dark Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glorious piece of inspirational rhetoric and just as gloriously wrong. Russell Baker rhetoric glorious pieces Strategic thinkers were naturally rattled to find this outsider fooling around with their work. They had been thinking strategically when Reagan was just another movie actor playing opposite a chimpanzee, for heaven's sake. They think Reagan is too naive, too innocent, to grasp the intellectual complexities of cold war strategy. Russell Baker opposites war thinking 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 the presidential giants on the order of Washington and Lincoln. Russell Baker reading ambition book 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 rereading age birthday People who say you're just as old as you feel are all wrong, fortunately. Russell Baker age justice people I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world. Russell Baker lonely loneliness years 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 unimportant-things humanity evil 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 grandmother self men It was clear soon after his election that Obama, like FDR, wanted to start dealing with the economic crisis immediately after his inauguration. Russell Baker economic election crisis The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him. Russell Baker inanimate-objects goal men Caution: These verses may be hazardous to your solemnity. Russell Baker caution solemnity may
