P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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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.
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The observers had a logbook recording the assaults, bombings, and artillery attacks on the area. Each page was ruled in vertical columns: DATE, TIME, LOCATION, DAMAGE, CASUALTIES. The columns headed ACTION TAKEN BY THE UN were completely empty.
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Politics doesn't work. Look at the parts of America where government has had the most power, where government has spent the most money. Look at the housing projects we've got the poor people in.
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War is a great asshole magnet.
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Chinese economic development has cost many American workers their jobs. That's the price of progress.
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Explosion of positive rights started in 1932 with the election of Roosevelt.
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Then basically what was happening was that it was the middle '80s, and Rolling Stone realized that a lot of their readers had voted for [Ronald] Reagan, and they were going, "Gosh! We need a Republican! Does anybody know a Republican? Wait a minute! I think P.J.'s a Republican!"
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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.
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One of the problems with being a writer is that all of your idiocies are still in print somewhere. I strongly support paper recycling.
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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.
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We tried to find the mayor. His secretary said he was at home. His wife said he was at the office. In Italy or France this would mean His Honor was having an affair. In Chabarovice it probably meant he'd run off to be a busboy in Stuttgart.
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Kabul is a walled city, which sounds romantic except the walls are pre-cast reinforced concrete blast barriers, 10 feet tall and 15 feet long and moved into place with cranes. The walls are topped with sandbags, and the sandbags are topped with guard posts from which gun barrels protrude.
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Some people have facts; these can be proven. Some people have theories; these can be disproven. But people with opinions are mindless and have their minds made up about it.
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There's only one secret to bachelor cooking - not caring how it tastes.
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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.
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One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes.
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Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm' by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes.
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You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism.
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The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say.
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Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time.
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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!
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People say free trade causes dislocation. In actual fact, it's the lowering of trade barriers that causes the dislocation.
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Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.
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Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.