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Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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We like to pile language on language. Hunter [ S. Thompson] was an influence on me, no doubt about it.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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
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I'm not a tech-savvy parent. I communicate with my children via the old-media format called yelling.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal extremely smart person who went into politics anyway instead of doing something worthwhile for his country.
P. J. O'Rourke
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The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Children from the age of five to ten should watch more television. Television depicts adults as rotten SOB's given to fistfights, gunplay, and other mayhem. Kids who believe this about grownups aren't likely to argue about bedtime.
P. J. O'Rourke
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The foundation of collectivism is simple: There should be no important economic differences among people. No one should be too rich.
P. J. O'Rourke
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That doesn't mean that you should just sit back and just let accidents happen to you. No, you have to go out and cause them yourself. That way you're in control of the situation.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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I know quite a few fellow members of the news analysis and commentary business, and I have it from the highest-placed sources, on the record, that each and every one of our children is a genius.
P. J. O'Rourke
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A child growing up in an excessively safe environment may never learn that he is one - not until he gets married and has a wife to tell him so.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Wealth brings great benefits to the world. Rich people are heros.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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
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It's hard to come back from the Balkans and not sound like a Pete Seeger song.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Gun violence has cost us too many political leaders, and hardly ever the worst ones.
P. J. O'Rourke
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The best and brightest don't go into politics. The best and brightest are at Goldman Sachs.
P. J. O'Rourke
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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.
P. J. O'Rourke
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Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are, literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations.
P. J. O'Rourke
