P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

I can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners— two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime.

P. J. O'Rourke
You'll note that politicians no longer spend money, they invest it. Don't worry about paying more to the [IRS]. You aren't being taxed; you're taking a plunge on a fly-by-night stock issue.

P. J. O'Rourke
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
Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting Hillary in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money — hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

P. J. O'Rourke
Money is preferable to politics. It is the difference between being free to be anybody you want and to vote for anybody you want. And money is more effective than politics both in solving problems and in providing individual independence. To rid ourselves of all the trouble in the world, we need to make money. And to make money, we need to be free.

P. J. O'Rourke
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
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
There's no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn't invaded Kuwait that August and set everyone gearing up for World War II. Can we count on Saddam Hussein to come along every year and resolve our defense-policy debates? Given the history of the Middle East, it's possible.

P. J. O'Rourke
Foreigners may pretend otherwise, but if English is spoken loudly enough, anyone can understand it, the British included. Actually, there's no such thing as a foreign language. The world is just filled with people who grunt and squeak instead of speaking sensibly. French may be an exception. But since it's impossible to figure out what French people are saying, we'll never know for sure.

P. J. O'Rourke
Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place.

P. J. O'Rourke
Golf... combines two favorite American pastimes: taking long walks and hitting things with a stick.

P. J. O'Rourke
How a peaceful, uncrowded place with ample wherewithal stays poor is hard to explain. How a conflict-ridden, grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing.

P. J. O'Rourke
Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.

P. J. O'Rourke
Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce.

P. J. O'Rourke
The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.

P. J. O'Rourke
There are no kinder or better people in the world than those who listen to you when you are 18.

P. J. O'Rourke
The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to.

P. J. O'Rourke
Veal is a very young beef and, like a very young girlfriend, it's cute but boring and expensive.

P. J. O'Rourke
I am no stranger to loud noise. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say.

P. J. O'Rourke
Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.

P. J. O'Rourke
Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven.

P. J. O'Rourke
The only really good vegetable is Tabasco sauce. Put Tabasco sauce in everything. Tabasco sauce is to bachelor cooking what forgiveness is to sin. The next best vegetable is the jalapeño pepper. It has the virtue of turning salads into practical jokes.

P. J. O'Rourke
Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

P. J. O'Rourke
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

P. J. O'Rourke
Writing this book required an enormous amount of help from friends. To them goes the credit. I'll take the money.

P. J. O'Rourke
One thing that's certain about going outdoors: When you come back inside, you'll be scratching.

P. J. O'Rourke
Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm worried about the difference between wrong and fun.

P. J. O'Rourke