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."

"The cruel law of life is that 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."

"In America nothing dies easier than tradition."

"Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong."

"It seems to be a law of American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic."

"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."

"There is no business like show business, Irving Berlin once proclaimed, and thirty years ago he may have been right, but not anymore. Nowadays almost every business is like show business, including po…"

"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…"