Russell Baker Quotes

I hate biographies which say, I was called to such and such an office, and he offered me so and so, and I got so and so money. I find that very tedious. The best biographies are written by other people.

All biographers, no matter how sympathetic, end up using their subjects as mirrors to figure themselves out. I don't want to be anyone's mirror.

Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.

A lot of folks just get it in their head that, for instance, like writing memoirs is just easy. You just write down what happened. It doesn't quite work that way.

I think when you're writing from your own life, it's hard because you realize that people have their own assessment of how they look, and they don't know how you will describe them.

The problem with me in doing things simply is that I feel I'm not enough. It's all very embarrassing.

Fredrick Buechner kind of loosened me up, hes got a little irreverency to him and I have a little too much reverancy.

I find that writing is a constant battle with exactly the same problems you've always had.

You can't live up to what people expect. Nobody can. But I guess that's my problem, not theirs.

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds

Too much is just enough.

I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the “slow one” in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

I have always been an optimist, perhaps even too much.

I don't seem to be cynical to myself but how what I say goes down with others is their problem. I'm realistic.

I'm not Tom Cruise. I don't have to look that good. I'm always going to have a problem because I'm thought of as someone edgy, but I'm not. I'm a cupcake.

Solving a problem is hard enough; it gets that much harder if you’ve decided beforehand it can’t be done.

biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.

The most obvious difference between writing novels and memoirs is that my memoirs are true stories, and explore certain experiences I've lived, and thus operate within the boundaries of memory and fact.

One of my trips was to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council with all the Saudi foreign ministers, and when we started the meeting I said 'Perhaps you've noticed that I'm not dressed the same as my predecessors", but no-one had a problem and I was never treated with anything other than respect...So I did not have problems with that, interestingly enough.

History can be formed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost forever.

I'm smart but not enough--just smart enough to have problems.

One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.

having too much is never enough.

As a woman, when you embrace where you are in life, then I think the struggle [life] isn't so hard. If you're 42 and still think you're an ingenue, then you've got a problem.