P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

A dugout is much superior to a conventional manufactured canoe because you can get soaking wet without bothering to capsize it.

P. J. O'Rourke
There was also a hunger strike in front of the National Press Club, which seemed an odd place to have a hunger strike (a cocktail fast, maybe). Although the Bangladeshis were savvy enough to know to know that if you're going to pester journalists, don't go to where they work: You'll never find them there.

P. J. O'Rourke
It is a law of governance that democracies have to spend themselves dizzy. Citizens of democracies can, after all, tell their government to give them things.

P. J. O'Rourke
I was told to hand over my disposable lighter, to prevent, I suppose, any threat of "Do what I say or I'll light this Marlboro and you'll all die - in thirty years due to inhalation of secondhand smoke."

P. J. O'Rourke
Men generally pay for all expenses on a date... either sex, however, may bring a little gift, its value to be determined by the bizarrness of the sexual request to be made later that evening.

P. J. O'Rourke
I suppose I should get a VCR, but the only thing I like about television is its ephemerality.

P. J. O'Rourke
One of the reporters must have flunked journalism school because he asked a question that went straight to the point.

P. J. O'Rourke
The sky was so clear that the starlight cast shadows, and so many sparkles and glitters and glints appeared above us that it looked like something really expensive had been dropped and shattered in heaven - God's Steuben ashtray, maybe.

P. J. O'Rourke
If a journalist shows a facility for praise he's liable to be offered a job in public relations or advertising and the next thing you know he's got a big office, a huge salary and is living in a fine home with a lovely wife and swell kids - another career blown to hell.

P. J. O'Rourke
Worship of nature may be ancient, but seeing nature as cuddlesome, hug-a-bear and too cute for words is strictly a modern fashion.

P. J. O'Rourke
If the Japanese want to be taken seriously as world financial powers, they'd better quit using the same tailor as variety show chimps.

P. J. O'Rourke
Germans respond well to lies. At least, they always have historically.

P. J. O'Rourke
There was an austerely dignified award ceremony. By that I mean we had to buy our own drinks - in clear violation of the international journalists'code of truth, fairness and an open bar.

P. J. O'Rourke
Visiting Future World is like opening a Chinese fortune cookie to read, "Soon you'll be finished with dinner."

P. J. O'Rourke
The wonder is that communism lasted so long. But then again, modern poetry lasted a long time, too.

P. J. O'Rourke
So what if I don't agree with the Democrats? What's to disagree with? They believe everything. And what they don't believe, the Republicans do. Neither of them stands for anything they believe in, anyway.

P. J. O'Rourke
El Salvador has the scenery of northern California and the climate of southern California plus - and this was a relief - no Californians.

P. J. O'Rourke
Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Gluttony, or, as we call them these days, "getting in touch with your sexuality," "raising your self-esteem," "relaxation therapy," and "being a recovered bulimic."

P. J. O'Rourke
Whenever people tell you they are going to wipe the slate clean, it's your slate they mean to wipe.

P. J. O'Rourke
Remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot.... Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, 'Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?'

P. J. O'Rourke
Good manners consist of doing precisely what everyone thinks should be done, especially when no one knows quite what that is.

P. J. O'Rourke
The problem isn't a Congress that won't cut spending or a president who won't raise taxes. The problem is an American public with a bottomless sense of entitlement to federal money.

P. J. O'Rourke
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a case of bad men doing wrong things for wicked reasons. This is the full-sized or standard purebred evil and is easily recognized even by moral neophytes. Other malignities-drugs in America, famine in Africa and everything in the Middle East-are more complex. When combating those evils people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot.

P. J. O'Rourke
Cats possess so many of the same qualities as some poeple that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.

P. J. O'Rourke
A nation with a goofy foreign policy needs a very serious policy of defense.

P. J. O'Rourke
Humans have trouble with economics, as you may have noticed, and not just because economic circumstances sometimes cause them to starve. Humans seem to have an innate inability to pay attention to economic principles.

P. J. O'Rourke
If the wind is blowing like stink and everything is working right, a twelve-meter sailboat can go eleven and a half or twelve miles an hour, the same speed at which a bond lawyer runs around the Cental Park Reservoir.

P. J. O'Rourke
A world government run by the UN will be like getting an old, purblind, half-deaf substitute teacher.

P. J. O'Rourke
I arrived in the middle of a press conference - as boring a thing to sit through if you don't know the language as it is if you do.

P. J. O'Rourke
This is the most elaborate and luxurious method of convincing others that you can cook. Take everybody out on your yacht until they're green in the face. Then you can rave for weeks about your sauce marinara and no one will gainsay you..

P. J. O'Rourke