P. J. O'Rourke 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
Quotes to Explore
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A British porch is a musty, forbidding non-room in which to fling a sodden umbrella or a muddy pair of boots; a guard against the elements and strangers. By contrast the good ol' American front porch seems to stand for positivity and openness; a platform from which to welcome or wave farewell; a place where things of significance could happen.
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In American films, Russians are often portrayed like cartoon villains without clear motivations.
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President Obama has contempt for real money.
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Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
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Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator. And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.
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I have new ideas every day, and I always want to take on new challenges.
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Islam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.
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There is resistance to change. There's a resistance to ideas.
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The pursuit of happiness, which American citizens are obliged to undertake, tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods, tastes and aptitudes of youth.
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Over my career, I've reinvented myself numerous times. I covered the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA. I wrote about labor wars, trade wars and real wars. I chronicled a nuclear plant meltdown and the defeat of Communism. I co-founded a couple of media businesses.
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My skin may have wrinkles but it's because I'm smiling so much. That might sound like some terrible American greetings card, but I feel it's immoral for me to castigate my body for getting older, when it does everything I ask of it.
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There's some real dark days where you just feel like the story is falling apart in every one. Just keep moving forward, even when you are bluffing, even when you don't quite know what is going to happen next.
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The political environment we create matters because a disturbed person cannot always tell the difference between explosive rhetoric and explosive actions.
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Once you are satisfied with your goal, it is the real happiness.
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It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!' I definitely want everything I do to just get better and better.
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The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
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The real abhorrent consequence of the invention of atomic bombs is the fact that we still have them and they're spreading.
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In American culture we are supposed to take a pill when we're depressed or in grief as opposed to actually feeling.
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Edith Wharton was a natural story-teller. As plots do in real life, hers flow directly from character. Her prose is so effortlessly elegant that you're rarely aware as they purl by that the sentences are so pretty. More concerned with what is put than how it is put, she also understood that you only say anything at all when you say it well.
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We have yet to see any real evidence of FCC activity in this area despite overtures by us to join us.
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The only person you resent is yourself.
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Those who understands is not better than those who appreciates, those who appreciates is not better than those who enjoys.
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Email is having an increasingly pernicious effect. Not only is it having a perceptible effect on productivity, it's skewing what it is we focus on. The immediate increasingly crowds out the important.
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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
