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
-
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.
-
In American films, Russians are often portrayed like cartoon villains without clear motivations.
-
President Obama has contempt for real money.
-
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
-
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.
-
I have new ideas every day, and I always want to take on new 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.
-
There is resistance to change. There's a resistance to ideas.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The political environment we create matters because a disturbed person cannot always tell the difference between explosive rhetoric and explosive actions.
-
Once you are satisfied with your goal, it is the real happiness.
-
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.
-
The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
-
The real abhorrent consequence of the invention of atomic bombs is the fact that we still have them and they're spreading.
-
In American culture we are supposed to take a pill when we're depressed or in grief as opposed to actually feeling.
-
I don't pay attention to auction prices. Nothing interests me less. One of the benefits of not being an artist is I don't have to navigate the social hierarchies of the art world as a person of desire. I don't need anything. I live in a different way.
-
I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist. You can call me an American first... I've been labeled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess.
-
I get star-struck anytime I meet performers that I grew up watching and appreciating. I mean, it's still incredibly surreal to me that I was a kid in San Antonio watching movies and then now I'm working with some of the people that were in those movies. I don't think it'll ever stop being surreal on some level.
-
I recently lost 50 pounds. I'm hovering on the cusp of a size eight, which seems unbelievable.
-
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
