P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

384 Sourced Quotes

In the American political system, you're only allowed to have real ideas if it's absolutely guaranteed that you can't win an election

P. J. O'Rourke
East Germany was so total in its totalitarianism that everything was banned which wasn't compulsory.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Chinese had gunpowder, but it didn't occur to them to put it in a gun. They possessed the compass but didn't go anywhere. They invented paper, printing, and a written form of their language, but hardly anyone in China was taught to read.

P. J. O'Rourke
I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

P. J. O'Rourke
Each American embassy comes with two permanent features - a giant anti-American demonstration and a giant line for American visas. Most demonstrators spend half their time burning Old Glory and the other half waiting for green cards.

P. J. O'Rourke
Imagine having journalists in your own home and not even covering the furniture with plastic sheets first.

P. J. O'Rourke
We have no one to blame for the Kennedys but ourselves. We took the Kennedys to heart of our own accord. And it is my opinion that we did it not because we respected them or thought what they proposed was good, but because they were pretty. We, the electorate, were smitten by this handsome, vivacious family.... We wanted to hug their golden tousled heads to our dumpy breasts.

P. J. O'Rourke
The very existence of the bicycle is an offense to reason and wisdom.

P. J. O'Rourke
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
Dates used to be made days or even weeks in advance. Now dates tend to be made the day after. That is, you get a phone call from someone who says, "If anyone asks, I was out to dinner with you last night, okay?"

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
West Germans are tall, pink, pert and orthodontically corrected, with hands, teeth and hair as clean as their clothes and clothes as sharp as their looks. Except for the fact that they all speak English pretty well, they're indistinguishable from Americans.

P. J. O'Rourke
Rich parents are famous both for miserliness and astonishing longevity. And, when they finally do die, you'll find they've left their estate in inviolate trust to the golden retrievers.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Democrats said, "We don't know what's wrong with America, but we can fix it." The Republicans said, "There's nothing wrong with America, and we can fix that."

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

P. J. O'Rourke