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The old notion that brevity is the essence of wit has succumbed to the modern idea that tedium is the essence of quality.

— Russell Baker There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

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More quotes by Russell Baker

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

So far as I could make out, what writers did couldn't even be classified as work.

Growing Up (1982)

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

Unaware of history's higher significance, I slumbered through the bliss of infancy, feeling no impulse whatever to make something of myself.

Growing Up (1982)

Watergate left Washington a city ravaged by honesty.

So This Is Depravity (1980)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Russell Baker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.