P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.
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Walking down the street in any town or city in the world and having people look at you and start talking to you, convinced that they know you as well or better than they do members of their own family, that's just an odd phenomenon. But I mean, I wouldn't say it was a bad thing. It's an interesting thing.
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In my memoir, I admit that I've been as fearful of success as of failure. In fact, when 'Passages' was published, I so dreaded bad reviews that I ran away to Italy with a girlfriend and our children to hide out.
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When we bemoan the lost golden age of music, it's worth remembering that mainstream radio listeners of the '60s and '70s, particularly in Canada, missed out on an outpouring of brilliant R&B music.
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Reporters tend to find in others what they are suited to find, so there is a whole school of reporting where they are cynical about the world, and everything reinforces that. Whereas I tend to be optimistic and be amused by people and like them, even rather bad people.
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Why should people go out and pay money to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?
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Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.
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Most people think companies are basically evil. They get a bad rap. And I think that's somewhat correct.
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I used to sit in front of McDonald's and ask people for dollars to get me a cheeseburger. It was bad.
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Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, in my opinion.
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The people in the villages had turned in on themselves. You can understand it. When you have a bad day on the field, what do you do? Talk to your teammates.
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Civil lawsuits do two important things: they compensate people who are injured by the bad acts of others, and they penalize people and companies for bad behavior.
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When improv is bad, it's excruciating to watch, and to be involved with it is a unique type of torture.
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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.
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A competitor will find a way to win. Competitors take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder. Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up. It's all a matter of pride.
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The nature of the Catilinarian conspiracy was bad and bloody.
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Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.
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I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things, but I don't view those effects as good or bad. If a context and a goal is defined, I could say if it's good or bad. But overall, I don't view things as good or bad.
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You have to be able to wake up in the morning and say, 'I've been true.'
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Practice has a logic which is not that of the logician.
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Artistic development made me who I am. Somebody took the time to help me find what it is that works for me as an entertainer and who I am as a music maker.
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Soup is a lot like a family. Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach full flavor.
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There is something glamorous to me in taking a bit of a beating and keeping on going.
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Somalia is so bad that making a mess improves the place.
