196 Quotes by Russell Baker

The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately defeat him.

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.

People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.

Ireland really is my problem; the breaking point of the huge suppuration which all British and all European society now is

It was clear soon after his election that Obama, like FDR, wanted to start dealing with the economic crisis immediately after his inauguration.

What [man landing on the moon] is doing up there is indulging his obsession with the impossible. The impossible infuriates and tantalizes him. Show him an impossible job and he will reduce it to a possibility so trite that eventually it bores him.

You can't enjoy light verse with a heavy heart.

Caution: These verses may be hazardous to your solemnity.

It was dramatic to watch my grandmother decapitate a turkey with an ax the day before Thanksgiving. Nowadays the expense of hiring grandmothers for the ax work would probably qualify all turkeys so honored with gourmet status.