So This Is Depravity and Other Observations Quotes

“We watched some of the movie. It was shocking. Sex is apparently hard labor. Various persons supported crushing weights in agonizing positions for what seemed like endless blocks of time. Exhausted men grunted and toiled like movers trying to get a refrigerator into a fifth floor walk-up.”
― Russell Baker, So This Is Depravity and Other Observations

“Being solemn has almost nothing to do with being serious, but on the other hand, you can't go on being adolescent forever, unless you are in the performing arts, and anyhow most people can't tell the difference. In fact, though Americans talk a great deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging. Jogging is solemn. Poker is serious. Once you grasp that distinction, you are on your way to enlightenment.”
― Russell Baker, So This Is Depravity and Other Observations

“There is no show business like show business, Irving Berlin once proclaimed, and [in 1950] he may have been right, but not anymore. Nowadays almost every business is like show business, including politics, which has become more like show business than show business is.”
― Russell Baker, So This Is Depravity and Other Observations