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P. J. O'Rourke

195 quotes

• “People with a mission to save the earth want the earth to seem worse than it is so their mission will look more important.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty— their power and privilege— to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Remember, FDA employees are serious about fear. We pay these people to panic about an iota of rodent hair in our chili, even when the recipe calls for it. FDA employees are first-class agonizers, world champions at losing sleep. When Meryl Streep got hysterical about Alar, they actually checked the apples instead of Meryl's head.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Saigon is like all the other great modern cities of the world. It's the mess left from people getting rich.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Sloths move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation and less noise.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Somalia is so bad that making a mess improves the place.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The morning meal was served in traditional socialist fashion— very slowly, with the courses out of order so that the jelly arrived half an hour after the toast and the coffee didn't come until we'd called for the check. However, it was hard to be angry at a place that had ice cream, beer, and cigarettes on its breakfast menu.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The observers had a logbook recording the assaults, bombings, and artillery attacks on the area. Each page was ruled in vertical columns: DATE, TIME, LOCATION, DAMAGE, CASUALTIES. The columns headed ACTION TAKEN BY THE UN were completely empty.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The typical old-fashioned diet was so bad it almost resembled modern dieting.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is a fine line in the Third World between half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe and half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe so they can throw you in jail.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Traffic was like a bad dog. It wasn't important to look both ways when crossing the street; it was important to not show fear.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Two key rules of Third World travel: 1. Never run out of whiskey. 2. Never run out of whiskey.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “War is a great asshole magnet.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We tried to find the mayor. His secretary said he was at home. His wife said he was at the office. In Italy or France this would mean His Honor was having an affair. In Chabarovice it probably meant he'd run off to be a busboy in Stuttgart.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When a private entity does not produce the desired results, it is (certain body parts excepted) done away with. But a public entity gets bigger.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Worshiping the earth is more fun than going to church. It's also closer. We can just step off the sidewalk. And sometimes we can get impressionable members of the opposite sex to perform sacramental rites with us. "Every drop of water wasted is a drop less of a wild and scenic river, Jennifer. We'd better double up in the shower.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We’re told cars are dangerous. It’s safer to drive through South Central Los Angeles than to walk there. We’re told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We’re told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it’s hard to reach the drive-through window at McDonald’s from a speeding train. And we’re told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money — if a gun is held to his head.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... This violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is parody, when you make fun of people who are smarter than you; satire, when you make fun of people who are richer than you; and burlesque, when you make fun of both while taking your clothes off.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When Adam Smith was being incomprehensible, he didn't have the luxury of brief, snappy technical terms as a shorthand for incoherence.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Author's Note”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: I knew that the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election would be interesting times. I had no idea they would rise to the level of an ancient Chinese curse.

• “Chapter One: The Campaign Begins: Ready, Set, Go to Hell”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 1856 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Show me one candidate who, like Millard Fillmore in 1856, has the honest decency to come right out and admit being a "Know-Nothing." At least the members of the Know-Nothing Party knew they knew nothing.

• “Chapter Two: The Abominable Showman: June 16, 2015”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Trump claims to be worth billions, seven of them as of 2012. In 2004 Forbes Magazine estimated Trump's net worth to be $2.6 billion. New York Times reporter Timothy O'Brien looked into the numbers and came up with a net…

• “Chapter Three: The Horror! The Horror!”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Chapter Four: A Huck So Unlike Finn: July 26, 2015”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Chapter 27: I Endorse Hillary Clinton”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 1692 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: America is experiencing the most severe outbreak of mass psychosis since the Salem witch trials of 1692. So why not put Hillary on the dunking stool?

• “Why can't everybody just get along? No reasonably detached person goes to Israel without being reduced in philosophical discourse to the level of Rodney King—or, for that matter, to the level of George Santayana. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Santayana said, in one of those moments of fatuousness that come to even the most detached of philosophers. It goes double for those who can't remember anything else. And they do get along, after their fashion. Muslims and Christians and Jews have lived together in the Holy Land for centuries—hating one another's guts, cutting one another's throats, and touching off wars of various magnitudes. The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in melodramatic plots.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Zion's Vital Signs" in The Atlantic (November 2001)

• “I am a little to the right of ... Why is the Attila comparison used? Fifth-century Hunnish depredations on the Roman Empire were the work of an overpowerful executive pursuing a policy of economic redistribution in an atmosphere of permissive social mores. I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: I Agree With Me" (July/August 2004)

• “And then there is the Tenth Commandment. 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.' The Ten Commandments are God's basic rules about how we should live — a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. The first nine Commandments concern theological principles and social law. But then, right at the end, is 'Don't envy your buddy's cow.' How did that make the top ten? What's it doing there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose as one of those things jealousy about the starter mansion with in-ground pool next door? Yet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have — go get your own. The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: An Alternative Inaugural Speech" (18 January 2005)

• “The difference between American parties is actually simple. Democrats are in favor of higher taxes to pay for greater spending, while Republicans are in favor of greater spending, for which the taxpayers will pay. In foreign policy, Republicans intend to pursue the war in Iraq but to do so with a minimal number of troops on the ground. This is not to be confused with the disastrous Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy of using a minimal number of troops on the ground to pursue the war in Iraq. Democrats intend to end the war, but they don't know when. Democrats are making the 'high school sex promise': I'll pull out in time, honest!”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Our European Friends" (4 February 2008)

• “I mean, so what if some fifty-eight-year-old butt-head gets a load on and starts playing Death Race 2000 in the rush-hour traffic jam? What kind of chance is he taking? He's just waiting around to see what kind of cancer he gets anyway. But if young, talented you, with all of life's possibilities at your fingertips, you and the future Cheryl Tiegs there, so fresh, so beautiful — if the two of you stake your handsome heads on a single roll of the dice in life's game of stop-the-semi — now that's taking chances! Which is why old people rarely risk their lives. It's not because they're chicken — they just have too much dignity to play for small stakes.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom," a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions—North and South, black and white, labor and management—but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Third World attitude toward the United States is also easy to understand if you think of it in terms of adolescence. The citizens of the Third World are in a teenage muddle about us--full of envy, imitation, anger and blind puppy love. I have been held at gunpoint by a Shi'ite youth in West Beirut who told me in one breath that America was "pig Satan devil" and that he planned to go to dental school in Dearborn as soon as he got his green card. In Ulundi, in Zululand, I talked to a young man who, as usual, blamed apartheid on the United States. However, he had just visited the U.S. with a church group and also told me, "Everything is so wonderful there. The race relations are so good. And everyone is rich." Just what part of America had he visited, I asked. "The South Side of Chicago," he said.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Things are better now than things have been since men began keeping track of things. Things are better than they were only a few years ago. Things are better, in fact, than they were at 9:30 this morning, thanks to Tylenol and two Bloody Marys. But that's personal and history is general. It's always possible to come down with the mumps on V-J Day or to have, right in the middle of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a piece of it fall on your foot. In general, life is better than it ever has been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word: 'dentistry.'”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave him "a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself." In the first place, the most horrifying fact in many of our lives is that our ex-spouse has gotten ahold of our ATM card. And civilization has always been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit.”

  P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source