The charm of television entertainment is its ability to bridge the chasm between dinner and bedtime without mental distraction.
Russell BakerPeople seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.
Russell BakerKingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century.
Russell BakerA man writing a letter is a man in the act of thinking, and it was an exercise Reagan obviously enjoyed. After his first meeting with Gorbachev, for example, he sent a 'Dear Murph' letter about it to his old friend George Murphy, a former senator and actor who had once played Reagan's father in a film.
Russell BakerWe honor ambition, we reward greed, we celebrate materialism, we worship acquisitiveness, we commercialize art, we cherish success and then we bark at the young about the gentle arts of the spirit. The kids know that if we really valued learning, we would pay our teachers what we pay our lawyers and stockbrokers. If we valued art, we would not measure it by its capacity to produce profits. If we regarded literature as important, we would remove it from the celebrity sweepstakes and spend a little money on our libraries.
Russell Baker