P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

The Arab peoples possess an ancient and highly developed civilization that is in many ways more sophisticated than our own. For instance, they invented algebra. And this is why we have to go to war with Saddam Hussein this minute and bomb the shish kebab out of him before he invents trig and chemistry and the whole of America flunks high school.

P. J. O'Rourke
Fashionably amusing table manners are a matter of breaking the right rule at the right time.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Democrats planned to fiddle while Rome burned. The Republicans were going to burn Rome, then fiddle.

P. J. O'Rourke
This country is so urbanized we think low-fat milk comes from cows on Nutri/System weight-loss plans.

P. J. O'Rourke
People shouldn't be treated like objects. They aren't that valuable.

P. J. O'Rourke
We are a nation that worships speed and power. And for good reason. Without power we would still be part of England and everybody would be out of work... Bicycles are too slow and impuissant for a nation like ours. They belong in Czechoslovakia.

P. J. O'Rourke
I can think of a number of areas in New York where three acres of nuclear waste would make the neighborhood safer to walk around in than it is now, and better lit.

P. J. O'Rourke
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
One of these suburbs is actually named Stalingrad, which goes to show that the French have learned nothing about politics since they guillotined all the smart people in 1793.

P. J. O'Rourke
Walt is dead. And, after a couple of hours at Epcot, you'll wish you were, too.

P. J. O'Rourke
If we do our deficit spending on weapons, at least we get weapons. Then if we need weapons, we have them. If we don't need them, no harm is done.

P. J. O'Rourke
The commies are the only people on earth who think Star Wars will work. If they're that gullible, maybe we should have held the summit at Atlantic City and let them lose all their missiles playing Keno.

P. J. O'Rourke
France in August when you can travel through the entire country without encountering a single pesky Frenchman or being bothered with anything that's open for business.

P. J. O'Rourke
African famine is not a visitation of fate. It is largely man-made, and the men who made it are largely Africans.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Republican convention, an event with the intellectual content of a Guns'n'Roses lyric attended by every ofay insurance brokerin America who owns a pair of white shoes.

P. J. O'Rourke
It was to be a short visit for the G-shevs. More than four days in the U.S. and Raisa's VISA card bill would shatter the fragile Soviet economy.

P. J. O'Rourke
Because of their cuisine, Germans don't consider farting rude. They'd certainly be out of luck if they did.

P. J. O'Rourke
Passover is my idea of a perfect holiday. Dear God, when you're handing out plagues of darkness, locusts, hail, boils, flies, lice, frogs, and cattle murrain, and turning the Nile to blood, and smiting firstborn, give me a pass, and tell me when it's over.

P. J. O'Rourke
Maybe it's understandable what a history of failures America's foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of people who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America's miniature schnauzer -- a noisy but small and useless part of the national household.

P. J. O'Rourke
Then there was communism's weak-tea sister, socialism. Socialists maintained that we shouldn't take all the money away from all the people since all the people don't have money. We should take all the money away from only the people who make money. Then, when we run out of that, we could take more money from the people who...hey, wait! Where'd you people go? What do you mean you're "tax exiles in Monaco?"

P. J. O'Rourke
In Washington journalists can afford to live almost as well as people who work for a living.

P. J. O'Rourke
There are artists with palettes and easels selling the kind of modern art that Soviet art critics used to critique with bulldozers. Judging by the paintings I saw, the Soviets were right the first time.

P. J. O'Rourke
People have a right to my food, a right to my housing, and a right to my good job for my decent pay.

P. J. O'Rourke
Journalists aren't supposed to praise things. It's a violation of work rules almost as serious as buying drinks with our own money or absolving the CIA of something.

P. J. O'Rourke