Russell Baker Quotes

I'm a classic example of what can happen if you follow your inner voice. I was cursed with interests and some talent in many different areas. It confuses people.

I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.

After college, rather than pursue real work, I joined a folk group and sang in coffee houses and nightclubs, an occupation that does little for the intellect and even less for the complexion.

I shouldn't say I'm looking forward to leading a normal life, because I don't know what normal is.

I feel as if my mission is to write, to see, to observe, and I feel lazy if I'm not reaching conclusions. I feel stupid. I feel as if I'm wasting my time.

I feel like I've cheated. I never knew what to do. I was never a good enough painter to earn a living, and so I drifted into the theatre, and I've had a successful life. I feel guilty that I've never done a day's work in my life!

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.

I've had an unusual life. A life far removed from most people's experience.

An artist is maybe not always having a normal life.

I guess I'm attracted to these off beat roles because my life has been a bit abnormal. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.

I haven't yet figured out how I was made first captain, because I was not an outstanding student. I was an adequate student.

My whole history of being an actor is unusual and slightly disgraceful because it should be something you burn to do.

If someone decides to be a musician now, it means because there is no hope of money at the end of it, it means they really want to be a musician. And if someone is writing now, there is no hope for money at the end of it.

My father tried to discourage me from going into comedy, mainly because he felt like it wasn't promising. It was pie in the sky.

I thought, 'Oh, I'll be an independent producer. Oh, I'll be a manager.' I was going through all those things in my head, and one night, late at night, I was having what I would now describe as probably a panic attack because there were so many unknowns. An almost literal voice came into my head telling me, 'You need to write.'

My story is more real life than most. Most Hall of Famers have great careers before they get inducted. I'm not supposed to be part of this conversation.

As long as I get to do the kind of work I want to do, I am okay with being a Z-lister.

I love being the underdog. I'm cool in my dog house.

There is a kind of sadness in not wanting the things that give so many other people their life's meaning. There can be sadness at not living out a more universal story - the supposed life cycle.

I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me

If you choose the sort of life which has no conventional pattern you have to try to make an art of it, or it is a mess.

If an intelligent, educated, and healthy man begins to complain of his lot and go down-hill, there is nothing for him to do but to go on down until he reaches the bottom--there is no hope for him. Where could my salvation come from? How can I save myself? I cannot drink, because it makes my head ache. I never could write bad poetry. I cannot pray for strength and see anything lofty in the languor of my soul. Laziness is laziness and weakness weakness. I can find no other names for them. I am lost, I am lost; there is no doubt of that.

I'm simply interested in what is going to happen next. I don't think I can control my life or my writing. Every other writer I know feels he is steering himself, and I don't have that feeling. I don't have that sort of control. I'm simply becoming. I'm startled that I became a writer.

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.

People say, 'What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?' I say, they don't really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they're gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.