-
The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Politicians will talk strategy and tactics and policies and programs until they're blue in the face, or you strangle them and they turn blue.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
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
P. J. O'Rourke
-
New Hampshire polling data are unreliable because, when you call the Granite State's registered Republicans and independents in the middle of dinner and ask them who they're going to vote for, they have a mouth full of mashed potatoes and you can't understand what they say.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
The most brilliant satire of all time was 'A Modest Proposal' by Jonathan Swift. You'll notice how everything got straightened out in Ireland within days of that coming out.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Human problems are complex. If something isn't complex it doesn't qualify as problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves about.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
A friend of mine at the American Enterprise Institute says there are two parties: the silly party and the stupid party. I'm too old for the silly party, so I had to join the stupid party.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Something that confirms all fears and many conspiracy theories about government is finding out what our elected representatives would put into law if they could.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Every generation finds the drug it needs.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
War is a great asshole magnet.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
When a private entity does not produce the desired results, it is (certain body parts excepted) done away with. But a public entity gets bigger.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
The Greenpeace booth at all the rock and roll shows nowadays are akin to the old sorcerers who used to stand in the middle of villages warning of danger, 'When night wolf swallows mother moon, there will be great famine.'
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Masochists are people that have pleasure confused with pain. In a world that has television confused with entertainment, doritoes confused with food, and Dan Quayle confused with a national political leader, masochists are clearly less mixed-up than the rest of us.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
A humorist doesn't really do that much note-taking.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Are we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my family is.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
I have three children and three dogs. You put them in a Prius, you know? People who have a Prius obviously have no life! No wife, no kids, no pets - there's no room in there for anything!
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Fishing ... is a sport invented by insects and you are the bait.
P. J. O'Rourke
-
Liberals want to live downtown. All over America - in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Georgetown - there are crowds of liberals living in the gritty, ugly, dirty neighborhoods sensible people are trying to flee.
P. J. O'Rourke
