P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Something that confirms all fears and many conspiracy theories about government is finding out what our elected representatives would put into law if they could.

P. J. O'Rourke

• Law
• Government
• Finding

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Quotes to Explore

• As a kid, my parents had the typical stuff going on in the home, like Bee Gees, The Carpenters. Then I got exposed to what my brothers were listening to: a lot of classic rock, Led Zeppelin. It was around the mid-'80s when the whole Electro-Techno-Pop-House music thing started happening in Chicago.

  

  Kaskade
  • Music
  • Home
  • House

• The first book I sat down to write was an historical romance. It was really bad and thankfully no one ever saw it.

  

  Rachel Gibson
  • Book
  • Bad
  • Down

• To be is to do.

  

  Immanuel Kant
  • Brainy

• I watch Jay. I watch 'Letterman'. I flip back and forth between 'Conan' and 'Letterman', especially the top of the show for those guys.

  

  Wanda Sykes
  • Back
  • Watch
  • Top

• Because it is my second season with the team, no time has been wasted in getting to know the people I'm working with. I am aware of what the team is capable of and how the organisation works, and they are familiar with what makes me tick.

  

  Damon Hill
  • Time
  • Team
  • Working

• Why go for a costly, sickly, mass-produced purebred when shelters are full of one-of-a-kind mixed breeds who are literally dying for a home?

  

  Ingrid Newkirk
  • Why
  • Home
  • Dying

• As long as I am nothing but a ghost of the civil dead, I can do nothing.

  

  Jack Henry Abbott
  • Dead
  • Ghost
  • Civil

• It's very easy to have slogans and rhetoric that people will follow, but eventually the slogans fall away.

  

  Saad Hariri
  • People
  • Fall
  • Easy

• I taught myself how to play the guitar. I never studied music.

  

  Dan Hawkins
  • Music
  • Myself
  • Guitar

• Western enthusiasm for democracy stops when those opposed to its policies are elected to office.

  

  Tariq Ali
  • Democracy
  • Enthusiasm

• Growing up my mother played Sarah Vaughan and Nat Cole in the house regularly.

  

  Aaron Neville
  • Up
  • Mother
  • House

• Passive violence can be as simple as someone honking their horn at you for not turning fast enough when the light changes. And it can be highly complex, like when your co-worker undermines all of your work relationships by spreading rumors and lies about you. That's how passive violence rolls.

  

  Inga Muscio
  • Work
  • Light
  • Simple

• Cornish wrestling was very different from that in Devon - it was less brutal, as no kicking was allowed.

  

  Sabine Baring-Gould
  • Different
  • Wrestling
  • Less

• Water for People is a non-profit international organization that brings together communities, entrepreneurs, governments - people - to create solutions that empower people to maintain their own reliable water systems and sanitation.

  

  Kat Graham
  • People
  • Together
  • Water

• I love romantic comedies, or romantic dramas - basically anything with love in it.

  

  Rachel Bilson
  • Romantic
  • Comedies
  • Basically

• We all know how funny Morrissey is. Actually, you know what? I say that sarcastically. His songs are some of the funniest songs I've ever heard in my life. I mean, really. I mean, not that the 'Girlfriend in a Coma' is, like, really funny.

  

  Zach Galifianakis
  • Life
  • Funny
  • My Life

• Every city is always changing, on its own trajectory.

  

  Olafur Eliasson
  • City
  • Always
  • Changing

• Life started getting good when I started making money.

  

  Balthazar Getty
  • Life
  • Good
  • Money

• Anger that has no limit causes terror, and unseasonable kindness does away with respect. Be not so severe as to cause disgust, nor so lenient as to make people presume.

  

  Saadi
  • People
  • Respect
  • Kindness

• Economics should be defined in terms of what it is about. It should be about how people produce things, how people exchange them, how people earn income, how they pay taxes, how the government provides infrastructure with tax revenue, and how it conducts monetary policy. The subject has to be defined in terms of the object of inquiry.

  

  Ha-Joon Chang
  • People
  • Government
  • Economics

• I introduced the Transparency in Government Act, a multi-faceted transparency bill that would bring unprecedented access and accountability to the federal government.

  

  Mike Quigley
  • Government
  • Accountability
  • Access

• Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue?

  

  Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • Man
  • Desire
  • Child

• Something that confirms all fears and many conspiracy theories about government is finding out what our elected representatives would put into law if they could.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Law
  • Government
  • Finding