Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down. Russell Baker
People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure. Russell Baker
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
An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious – just dead wrong. Russell Baker
I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world. Russell Baker
In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses. Russell Baker
Inanimate objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories; those that don’t work, those that break down and those that get lost. Russell Baker
Live by publicity, you’ll probably die by publicity. Russell Baker
Reporters thrive on the world’s misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity. Russell Baker
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any. Russell Baker
The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist. Russell Baker
It seems to be a law of American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic. Russell Baker
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. Russell Baker
There’s so much spectating going on that a lot of us never get around to living. Russell Baker
Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses. Russell Baker
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
Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging. Russell Baker
Goat cheese…produced a bizarre eating era when sensible people insisted that this miserable cheese produced by these miserable creatures reared on miserable hardscrabble earth was actually superior to the magnificent creamy cheeses of the noblest dairy animals bred in the richest green valleys of the earth. Russell Baker
Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. Russell Baker