A. J. Liebling (1904 – 1963)
American journalist who was closely associated with The New Yorker from 1935 until his death.
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News is like the tilefish which appears in great schools off the Atlantic Coast some years and then vanishes, no one knows whither or for how long. Newspapers might employ these periods searching for the breeding grounds of news, but they prefer to fill up with stories about Kurdled Kurds or Calvin Coolidge, until the banks close or a Hitler marches, when they are as surprised as their readers.
As a result of its generous stand [Robert Maynard Hutchins’ controversial policy of admitting students after their second year of high-school], the University of Chicago’s undergraduate college acts as the greatest magnet for neurotic juveniles since the Children’s Crusade, with Robert Maynard Hutchins…playing the role of Stephen the Shepherd Boy.
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.
Show me a poet, and I'll show you a shit.
Inconsiderate to the last, Josef Stalin, a man who never had to meet a deadline, had the bad taste to die in installments.
People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
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