When it comes to cars, only two varieties of people are possible - cowards and fools.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that those who are overly cautious or completely reckless in their views on cars represent the extremes of human behavior.
Russell Baker's quote implies that people tend to react to cars in one of two contradictory ways: either they are afraid of them, embodying caution and timidity, or they are foolishly reckless, choosing to disregard safety and responsibility. This dichotomy serves as a commentary on human nature and our relationship with risk, particularly in the context of automobiles, which can evoke both fear and excitement.
In practice
During a speech about risk-taking, one might reference this quote to illustrate extremes of caution and recklessness.
So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can't even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and vroom! there he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.
The worst thing about the miracle of modern communications is the Pavlovian pressure it places upon everyone to communicate whenever a bell rings.
Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets.
Rereading A.J. Liebling carries me happily back to an age when all good journalists knew they had plenty to be modest about, and were.
Television was the most revolutionary event of the century. Its importance was in a class with the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of the printing press, which changed the human condition for centuries afterward.
Objects can be classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost.
I'm not just a pundit - I'm a comedian.
You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest.
Madame Lily Devalier always asked "Where are you?" in a way that insinuated that there were only two places on earth one could be: New Orleans and somewhere ridiculous.
I wish my name was Brian because maybe sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That's like a free compliment and you don't even gotta be smart to notice it.
I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.
Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public.
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