P. J. O'Rourke - Holidays in Hell (1988)

49 Sourced Quotes

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Germans respond well to lies. At least, they always have historically.

P. J. O'Rourke
The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'.

P. J. O'Rourke
The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.

P. J. O'Rourke
The old woman was not only ugly with the ugliness age brings us all but showed signs of formidable ugliness by birth - pickle-jar chin, mainsail ears and a nose like a trigonometry problem. What's more, she had the deep frown and snit wrinkles that come from a lifetime of bad character.

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

P. J. O'Rourke
What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.

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
There are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get on one voluntarily.

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
You can always reason with a German. You can always reason with a barnyard animal, too, for all the good it does.

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
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
It had never occurred to us that the Kremlin's new anti-booze campaign would apply to journalists. Now, that's a human-rights violation.

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
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
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
I don't think I'll ever be a real boat reporter. My Rolex isn't big enough.

P. J. O'Rourke
Taxi drivers all over the world, by the way, are under Newspaper Guild contract to give easy quotes to foreign correspondents.

P. J. O'Rourke
At Epcot Center the Disney corporation has focused its attention on two things greatly in need of Disneyfication: the tedious future and the annoying whole wide world.

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
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
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
Cockfighting has always been my idea of a great sport— two armed entrées battling to see who'll be dinner.

P. J. O'Rourke
The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know.

P. J. O'Rourke
In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic.

P. J. O'Rourke
I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.

P. J. O'Rourke
Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.

P. J. O'Rourke