Quotes by A. J. Liebling

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

“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.”

“Chicago seems a big city instead of merely a large place.”

“Henry Miller may write about revelers self-woven into a human hooked rug, because his ecstasy is solemn.”

“I take a grave view of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy.”

“I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.”

“The way to write is well, and how is your own business.”

“An Englishman teaching an American about food is like the blind leading the one-eyed.”

“If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior.”

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

I can write better than anyone who can write faster and I can write faster than anyone who can write better.

The pattern of a newspapermans life is like the plot of Black Beauty. Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.

An Englishman teaching an American about food is like the blind leading the one-eyed.

The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down.

If the first requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite, the second is to put in your apprenticeship as a feeder when you have enough money to pay the check but not enough to produce indifference of the total.

Southern political personalities, like sweet corn, travel badly. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. By the time they reach New York, they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas - stale and unprofitable. The consumer forgets that the corn tastes different where it grows.

The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role in society is to make money.