P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

The dominant type of humor in the '60s was essentially defensive and self-deprecating, using humor as a shield.

P. J. O'Rourke

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government.

  

  Mackenzie King
  • Bad
  • Government
  • Opinion

• But Buddy was an upper. He was happy. He loved music, and he was really happy. I don't know... I don't believe in reincarnation at all, but if all that stuff is true, then he might have been on his last time around.

  

  Waylon Jennings
  • Time
  • Music
  • Believe

• Honest communication is a rare thing.

  

  Taylor Sheridan
  • Communication
  • Honest
  • Rare

• Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.

  

  Paramahansa Yogananda
  • Heart
  • May
  • Soul

• I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is - this thing that happens to everyone, so I've heard.

  

  Taylor Swift
  • Up
  • Growing
  • Feelings

• 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

• I purposefully try to make films in that grey area, where things are morally ambiguous. It's like life: good people do horrible things, and bad people do good things, and there's beauty in horror and horror in beauty.

  

  Harmony Korine
  • People
  • Life
  • Good

• I just do what's comfortable for me, whether it's getting fresh haircuts, or the clothes that I wear. It's simple; I'm just me. I don't really go out of my way. I do make sure my face is washed and moisturized, though.

  

  Lance Gross
  • Me
  • Simple
  • Clothes

• People know more about baseball players' contracts than they do about the policies that govern the fate of our children's lives in twenty years. Think about it. People used to say, the whole time I was growing up, 'Do you want to bring a child into this world?' That's pretty dire.

  

  Jackson Browne
  • People
  • Up
  • Time

• My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.

  

  Eddie Izzard
  • People
  • Up
  • Time

• Quality that significantly exceeds the customer's expectations doesn't seem to pay off. This 'delight the customer' stuff isn't rewarding. One has to be careful about delighting customers too often, because it sort of reshapes customer expectations.

  

  Tahl Raz
  • Quality
  • Expectations

• I used to sculpt a bit as a kid.

  

  Taron Egerton
  • Kid
  • Used
  • Sculpt

• Libertarianism is a way of measuring how the government and other kinds of systems respect the individual. At the core of libertarianism is the idea that the individual is sacrosanct and that anything that's done contrary to the well-being of the individual needs some pretty serious justification.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Done
  • Pretty
  • Respect

• For centuries, building materials were free. You want to build a house, you cut down some trees. But we haven't been thinking about the cost to the planet.

  

  Dan Phillips
  • Thinking
  • House
  • Free

• I have two daughters: One an open book, one a locked box. So the question of privacy is a challenging one. How much do kids need? How much should we give? How do we prepare them to live in a world where the very notion of privacy opens a generational chasm?

  

  Nancy Gibbs
  • World
  • Live
  • Book

• I've always been motivated more by negative comments than by positive ones. I know what I do well. Tell me what I don't do well.

  

  Abby Wambach
  • Me
  • Positive
  • Motivated

• One of the things that's frustrated me as a deep-sea explorer is how many animals there probably are in the ocean that we know nothing about because of the way we explore the ocean.

  

  Edith Widder
  • Deep
  • Sea
  • Ocean

• I have made a lot of mistakes raising the four Jenner kids.

  

  Caitlyn Jenner
  • Kids
  • Made
  • Mistakes

• Mr. Ware has no right to discharge any of his laborers on account of their political opinion.

  

  Charles E. Merrill
  • Political
  • Opinion

• You'd be surprised how many kids and young people come to the website and send me email that they are actually going into the Marine Corp because of something that I said or did.

  

  R. Lee Ermey
  • People
  • Kids
  • Said

• India is a land of plenty inhibited by poverty; India has an enthralling, uplifting civilization that sparkles not only in our magnificent art, but also in the enormous creativity and humanity of our daily life in city and village.

  

  Pranab Mukherjee
  • Life
  • Art
  • City

• I get along with everybody.

  

  Buddy Valastro

• I thought I would go out, and see if the air would make me feel any better.

  

  Lizzie Andrew Borden
  • Air

• The dominant type of humor in the '60s was essentially defensive and self-deprecating, using humor as a shield.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke