P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say 'I've got cancer' and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy?
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No doubt the ridiculous politicians are right to like politics. They have found careers in which success can be achieved by being ridiculous. Imagine Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush rising to the top of any other profession.
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Keeping house is as unpleasant and filthy as coal mining, and the pay's a lot worse.
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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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The idea of a stag hunt evokes chivalry - knights in jerkins and hose, ladies on sidesaddles with wimples and billowing dresses, a white stag symbolizing something-or-other, and Robin Hood getting in the way. An actual stag hunt is more like a horseback meeting of a county planning commission.
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Regulation creates a moral hazard.
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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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That is the really great thing about being an adult male, once you get married and have children the whole decision-making process is taken out of your hands, and I for one am extremely grateful.
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Upbeat is for people who want to feel good about their cause: the reformers, the progressives, the revolutionaries, the utopians, the collectivists, and the rest of the altruistic scum of the earth. Why do these people want to feel good? They want to feel good in order to convince themselves that they are good.
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There's one more terrifying fact about old people: I'm going to be one soon.
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I had always thought of Egypt as a rather secular country. And I think it is, but people are quite observant of the strictures of Ramadan.
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Popular culture has become engorged, broadening and thickening until it's the only culture anyone notices.
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My ignorance is widespread.
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America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.
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Two key rules of Third World travel: 1. Never run out of whiskey. 2. Never run out of whiskey.
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Now for good or ill, California is the place where trends tend to be set in Western civilization - if civilization indeed it is. California, for several generations now, has been the newest, biggest, most experimental place in the newest, biggest, most experimental part of liberal Western capitalism - which is itself a new experiment for mankind.
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Advocating the expansion of the powers of the state is treason to mankind, goddamnit!
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Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives.
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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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To really enjoy drugs you've got to want to get out of where you are. But there are some wheres that are harder to get out of than others. This is the drug-taking problem for adults. Teenage weltschmerz is easy to escape. But what drug will get a grown-up out of, for instance, debt?
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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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A fundamental American question is, 'What's the big idea?'
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Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.
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Opinions of language are as interesting as opinions of arithmetic.