P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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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.
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Fortunately, I'm married to someone who's a pretty excellent parent!
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All religions must be made child-proof. Our teachers' unions have done good work in this field, K through 12. Delaying first communions and bar mitzvahs until age 21 would be another positive step.
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Fishing ... is a sport invented by insects and you are the bait.
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What Enron was doing, what caused investors to embrace it in a rapture of baffled awe, was hiding debt.
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Every generation finds the drug it needs.
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And, by the way, how come all the people who were so in favor of unilateral nuclear disarmament are so opposed to unilateral protection against nukes?
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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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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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Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.
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We like to pile language on language. Hunter [ S. Thompson] was an influence on me, no doubt about it.
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The morning meal was served in traditional socialist fashion- very slowly, with the courses out of order so that the jelly arrived half an hour after the toast and the coffee didn't come until we'd called for the check. However, it was hard to be angry at a place that had ice cream, beer, and cigarettes on its breakfast menu.
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There are plenty of problems in the world, and doubtless climate change - or whatever the currently voguish phrase for it all is - certainly is one of them. But it's low on my list.
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The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say.
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Nothing about economic growth in the United States over the course of the past 40, 50 years, during which time this has been continually happening, would indicate that we are being harmed in an overall sense by this.
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Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.
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Humans have trouble with economics, as you may have noticed, and not just because economic circumstances sometimes cause them to starve. Humans seem to have an innate inability to pay attention to economic principles.
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Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
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On Friday, June 12, 1992, 110 heads of state gathered at Riocentro. They were indistinguishable in dress and deportment. Where was biodiversity when we needed it?
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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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There's only one secret to bachelor cooking - not caring how it tastes.
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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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The best and brightest don't go into politics. The best and brightest are at Goldman Sachs.
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In the past a man was expected to give his seat on a bus to a woman. Today it would be much more courteous for that man to give her his job.