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

P. J. O'Rourke

• Real
• American
• Political
• Ideas
• Winning

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Quotes to Explore

• 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.

  

  Dan Stevens
  • Good
  • American
  • Stand

• In American films, Russians are often portrayed like cartoon villains without clear motivations.

  

  Yuliya Snigir
  • American
  • Often
  • Cartoon

• President Obama has contempt for real money.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Real
  • Money
  • President

• Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • American
  • Funny
  • Nobody

• 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.

  

  Zell Miller
  • American
  • America
  • Today

• I have new ideas every day, and I always want to take on new challenges.

  

  Dane Cook
  • Day
  • Ideas
  • Challenges

• 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.

  

  Pat Robertson
  • World
  • Political
  • Religion

• There is resistance to change. There's a resistance to ideas.

  

  Abdullah II of Jordan
  • Change
  • Ideas
  • Resistance

• I just don't consider myself to be, you know, an American actor. I don't want that life.

  

  Damian Lewis
  • Life
  • American
  • Myself

• 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.

  

  Malcolm Muggeridge
  • Trying
  • American
  • Happiness

• 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.

  

  Walt Mossberg
  • Real
  • Career
  • Myself

• 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.

  

  Olivia Williams
  • May
  • American
  • Body

• 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.

  

  Dan Scanlon
  • Real
  • Moving
  • Dark

• The political environment we create matters because a disturbed person cannot always tell the difference between explosive rhetoric and explosive actions.

  

  Madeleine M. Kunin
  • Political
  • Environment

• Once you are satisfied with your goal, it is the real happiness.

  

  Saina Nehwal
  • Real
  • Happiness
  • Goal

• 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.

  

  Banks
  • People
  • Amazing
  • Ideas

• The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.

  

  Felix Frankfurter
  • Real
  • Power
  • Exercise

• The real abhorrent consequence of the invention of atomic bombs is the fact that we still have them and they're spreading.

  

  Barry Commoner
  • Real
  • Fact
  • Invention

• 'Teddy, you know what I was thinking? How do you tell what are real things from what aren't real things?' The bear shuffled its alternatives. 'Real things are good.' 'I wonder if time is good. I don't think Mummy likes time very much. The other day, lots of days ago, she said that time went by her. Is time real, Teddy?'

  

  Brian Aldiss
  • Time
  • Good
  • Thinking

• Frankly, no issue is worth shutting down the government and denying pay to those committed to public service.

  

  Pete Gallego
  • Service

• It is a terrible commentary on Christian civilization that the longest period of slave-raiding known to history was initiated by the action of Spain, Portugal, France, Holland and Britain, after the Christian faith had for more than a thousand years been the established religion of Europe.

  

  Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher
  • History
  • Faith
  • Action

• As a boy, I had two small aquaria in our backyard in which I watched, each spring, the nest building and other fascinating behaviours of sticklebacks.

  

  Nikolaas Tinbergen
  • Watch
  • Behaviour
  • Backyards

• I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings.

  

  Anne Stevenson
  • Life
  • Art
  • Friends

• 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
  • Real
  • American
  • Political