P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
-
In Toledo, people grow out. Out to the suburbs. Out to the parts of America where the economy is more vigorous. And all too often, out to 48-inch waistbands.
-
One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
-
Obama, in pursuit of power, has been as greedy and irresponsible as any Wall Street tycoon in pursuit of money.
-
Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats.
-
Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box.
-
Popular culture has become engorged, broadening and thickening until it's the only culture anyone notices.
-
Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.
-
Harvard is the home of American ideas.
-
People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively.
-
I was very much in favor of the Iraq invasion.
-
Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry.
-
Jimmy Carter was - he still - he remains to this day America's most ex of ex-presidents. You just can't believe that we elected this doofus. He was a bright enough guy and sort of well-meaning. But he was about as prepared to be president of the United States as your goofy old uncle, you know, the one that memorises baseball statistics.
-
I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.
-
The two most frightening words in Washington are 'bipartisan consensus.' Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.
-
Some people think that welfare reform should have hurt Bill Clinton with black voters.
-
Abstract anger is great for rhetorical carrying on. You can go on endlessly about the post office, but it doesn't mean you're mad at your mailman.
-
Raining on parades requires no skill or effort on the part of a politician.
-
America is the world's policeman, all right -- a big, dumb, mick flatfoot in the middle of the one thing cops dread most, a "domestic disturbance.
-
Some taxpayers may object to a print journalism bailout on the grounds that it mostly benefits the liberal elite. And we can't blame taxpayers for being reluctant to subsidize the reportorial careers of J-school twerps who should have joined the Peace Corps and gone to Africa to 'speak truth to power' to Robert Mugabe.
-
Zero-sum thinking is an obsession of mine, but mostly in economics.
-
Affirmative action makes employers think, 'Black woman nuclear physicist? Hah! Probably let her into Harvard 'cause they were looking for a twofer. Bet she got C's in high school practical math. Give her a job in personnel.'
-
The laws of the marketplace are physical laws, and they don't become suspended in a crisis any more than the law of gravity does.
-
The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life - this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.
-
America is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way. We don't think much at all, thank God.