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Show me a poet, and I'll show you a shit.

— A. J. Liebling

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: The New Yorker (March 28, 1953), quoted in David Remnick, "Reporting It All: A.J. Liebling at 100", The New Yorker (March 29, 2004)
Source quality: Secondhand citation Quoted from another book or article rather than from the original.

More by A. J. Liebling

The subject [of Stalin's death] permitted a rare blend of invective and speculation—both Hearst papers, as I recall, ran cartoons of Stalin being rebuffed at the gates of Heaven, where Hearst had no correspondents—and I have seldom enjoyed a week of newspaper reading more.

Just Enough Liebling: Classic Work by the Legendary New Yorker Writer (2004)

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Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.

Inconsiderate to the last, Josef Stalin, a man who never had to meet a deadline, had the bad taste to die in installments.

A man´s taste is formed more by his culture, his profession, and the period in which he is young than by his race or politics.

The Road Back to Paris (1988)

You can hope for lucky encounters only if you walk around a lot.

The Road Back to Paris (1988)

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Attribution

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