P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.
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People will tell you anything but what they do is always the truth.
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Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty- their power and privilege- to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.
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After all, what is your host's purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
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Simply because something is a populist movement doesn't make it either good or bad.
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If we heard that somebody starved to death in Sweden or Switzerland, we would be shocked.
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The divorce rate in 1946 was higher than it ever had been and as high as it ever would be until the '70s. The reason was that prior relationships had not endured the strain of war.
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I covered the Lebanese civil war. I could see a place that had once been prosperous and now was impoverished. I'm not seeing that in America.
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If a journalist shows a facility for praise he's liable to be offered a job in public relations or advertising and the next thing you know he's got a big office, a huge salary and is living in a fine home with a lovely wife and swell kids - another career blown to hell.
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Adam Smith is misread as being amoral precisely because people don't read his first book, because they don't read 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments.'
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The most futuristic aspect of the House of the Future was that it was made almost entirely of plastic.
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I think the Baby Boom does have a tendency to get its nose in everything. The Greatest Generation had a better tendency to leave people alone. Of course, they also had a better tendency to hate everybody's guts.
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Conservatives really don't believe in politics as the primary instrument of getting along in life and therefore don't tend to put their energy into it a way people left of center do.
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In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic.
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A firm, hearty handshake gives a good first impression, and you'll never be forgiven if you don't live up to it.
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In the language of politics, there is only one translation for the phrase 'hope and change,' to wit: 'big, fat government.'
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The District of Columbia is an extreme example of disconnect between financial input and educational outcome. Unfortunately, extreme is not the same as abnormal.
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America's public schools have served their purpose. Free and compulsory education was good for a somewhat unpromising young nation.
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They are just really stupid people in Hollywood. You write them a script, and they say they love it, they absolutely love it. Then they say, 'But doesn't it need a small dog, and an Eskimo, and shouldn't it be set in New Guinea?' And you say, 'But it is a sophisticated romantic comedy set in Paris.'
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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
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As a former writer for the 'National Lampoon,' I've probably contributed to the sea of sarcasm in which we live.
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Biotechnology is a worry. What if they take genetic material from wet noodles and blowfish and splice it into politician chromosomes and create a Clinton administration?
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Fall of the Berlin wall? Being there was fun. Nations that flaked off of the Soviet Union in southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus? Being there was not so fun.
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You can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen.