P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I'm not even sure we can draw lessons from them.

P. J. O'Rourke

• History
• Peace
• Happiness

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Quotes to Explore

• The reason for not getting married was that I just didn't have a partner to get married to. Climbing mountains was more attractive to me than marriage, or other fun things like that.

  

  Tamae Watanabe
  • Fun
  • Reason
  • Marriage

• The difference between eccentricity and originality in historical studies is often difficult to detect at first encounter. When a radically new interpretation of a large segment of history makes its appearance, time is needed to sift the evidence.

  

  Edmund Morgan
  • Time
  • History
  • New

• I wish I'd gone to music school or just started playing in bands sooner.

  

  Rachel Platten
  • Music
  • School
  • Wish

• I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.

  

  M. C. Escher
  • Enough
  • Dreams
  • Use

• I've done a few studio films in the last few years where I feel like I've done good work, and then I only end up in two scenes. That's been very disappointing.

  

  Illeana Douglas
  • Up
  • Good
  • Work

• I had decided that if I was going to be a singer, I had to earn it. I had to learn how to play an instrument.

  

  Madonna Breakfast Club
  • Play
  • Learn
  • Singer

• Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael.

  

  C. S. Lewis
  • God
  • Leader
  • Satan

• I did every job under the sun from bartending to ushering to temping.

  

  Natalie Dormer
  • Job
  • Sun
  • Did

• Painting what I experience, translating what I feel, is like a great liberation. But it is also work, self-examination, consciousness, criticism, struggle.

  

  Balthasar Klossowski de Rola
  • Work
  • Great
  • Experience

• Don't let your sins turn into bad habits.

  

  Saint Teresa of Avila
  • Bad
  • Turn
  • Habits

• You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.

  

  Pablo Picasso
  • Believe
  • You
  • Lies

• I always see the absurdity in most situations. It's my experience of how life works.

  

  Natasha Lyonne
  • Life
  • Experience
  • Always

• New Hampshire is moving in the right direction because we have shown time and time again that we can work across the aisle to solve problems.

  

  Maggie Hassan
  • Time
  • Work
  • Moving

• Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair.

  

  Ieyasu Tokugawa
  • Will
  • Despair
  • Imperfection

• At Cheney's initiative, the United States stripped terror suspects of long-established rights under domestic and international law, building a new legal edifice under exclusive White House ownership.

  

  Barton Gellman
  • Long
  • House
  • Law

• I would love to work with Reese Witherspoon.

  

  Olivia Holt
  • Work
  • Love
  • Would

• Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

  

  Barack Obama
  • Time
  • Change
  • Waiting

• Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

  

  Edmund Hillary
  • Myself
  • Person
  • Ordinary

• I'm crazy about my father, he's an amazing man, a real adventurer. He took us with him to travel all over the world. We were in places that were so remote, that white people hardly ever reach them.

  

  Peta Wilson
  • People
  • World
  • Real

• You can only get so many belly laughs out of nihilism and the price of black eyeliner.

  

  Alan Russell
  • Laughs
  • Nihilism

• The Southern Baptist Convention, as you know, decided in the year 2000 that women should not be permitted to be pastors or deacons or chaplains in the military service. Some Southern Baptist seminaries don't even permit women to teach male students. I don't agree with that. But they can go in and quote a few passages of Paul that women should be restricted in their services.

  

  Jimmy Carter
  • Women
  • Pastors
  • Military service

• We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.

  

  Ferdinand Mount
  • History
  • Doubt
  • Unique

• What does it really mean to have something change in you very late in your life, after you've structured your life in a different way? What does it mean to be someone who has had a history of sometimes reckless living, and then to really want to change yourself?

  

  Debra Granik
  • Life
  • Different
  • History

• Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I'm not even sure we can draw lessons from them.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • History
  • Peace
  • Happiness