P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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Imagine having journalists in your own home and not even covering the furniture with plastic sheets first.
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There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. Keep your hands to yourself, Bill. Hillary, mind your own business.
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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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Any trade that is voluntarily made is mutually beneficial, by definition, and, indeed, is balanced, by definition.
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I had a confused early hippie phase, which was like a cafeteria tray of sloppy, semi-Marxist thoughts, absorbed second-hand.
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Advocating the expansion of the powers of the state is treason to mankind, goddamnit!
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There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.
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Adam Smith's huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.
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Some people say a front-engine car handles best. Some people say a rear-engine car handles best. I say a rented car handles best.
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Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.
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A pleasant natural environment is a good- a luxury good, philosophical good, a moral goody-good, a good time for all. Whatever, we want it. If we want something, we should pay for it, with our labor or our cash. We shouldn't beg it, steal it, sit around wishing for it, or euchre the government into taking it by force.
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War expands government powers. The trouble is that, when the war goes away, the government powers do not.
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When I was fifteen, I dreamed of living in the big city, as many a young person does if he is artistic and sensitive. By 'artistic and sensitive' I mean short, skinny, unkissed, bad at sports, and carrying a C average in high school.
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Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And - since women are a majority of the population - we'd all be married to Mel Gibson.
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For some mysterious Darwinian reason, women feel compelled to straighten up bedrooms before and after sex. Try to make love in every other room of the house.
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Liberals have a quaint and touching faith that truth is on their side and an even quainter faith that journalists are on the side of truth.
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There are probably more fact-finding tours of Nicaragua right now than there are facts- the country has shortages of practically everything.
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In a free country, government is a dull and onerous responsibility. It is a parent-teacher conference.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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Government conspiracy? They can't even deliver our mail and it's got our address on it and everything!
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Like it or not, I've come to appreciate soccer. Any kid can play, which fits with the inclusive agenda of progressive schools. Although the corollary to 'any kid can play' is that every kid must play because there is an iron grip to the warm hug of progressive inclusionism.
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By the end of the 1950s, American cars were so reliable that their reliability went without saying even in car ads. Thousands of them bear testimony to this today, still running on the roads of Cuba though fueled with nationalized Venezuelan gasoline and maintained with spit and haywire.