P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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The American political system is like fast food - mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of things and everybody wants some.
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One thing that's certain about going outdoors: When you come back inside, you'll be scratching.
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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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I was never in the office [of Rolling Stone]. It was very different from Lampoon, where we spent a lot of time together socially, which is to say "drunk."
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I'm a registered Republican and consider socialism a violation of the American principle that you shouldn't stick your nose in other people's business except to make a buck.
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The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.
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Freedom is for fun.
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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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I suspect the Haitian Ministry of Health's principal contribution to health in Haiti is providing nice, healthy jobs to those Haitians with the connection to get them.
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When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... This violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.
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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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In general, life is better than it has ever been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word : Dentistry.
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A deadly sins addendum is long overdue. Life has changed since Pope Gregory the Great scribbled his initial list in the sixth century.
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It takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how long you last.
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Global warming is a fact. Now it's up to liberals to make it a reality. Hence there is crucial importance in preventing powerful, greedy free market forces from getting in the way of worsening storms and rising sea levels. The Kyoto Accord is a good first step.
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In 1970 or '71, early in the magazine, Michael O'Donoghue did maybe eight pages of a 1958 yearbook, from Ezra Taft Benson High School. But by the time the [book-length] high-school yearbook came around, he didn't want to be involved.
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People with a mission to save the earth want the earth to seem worse than it is so their mission will look more important.
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The purpose of a funeral service is to comfort the living. It is important at a funeral to display excessive grief. This will show others how kind-hearted and loving you are and their improved opinion of you will be very comforting.
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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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In thirteen years, every aspect of the universe can change - ask a thirteen-year-old.
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The sky was so clear that the starlight cast shadows, and so many sparkles and glitters and glints appeared above us that it looked like something really expensive had been dropped and shattered in heaven - God's Steuben ashtray, maybe.
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The complexity of economics can be calculated mathematically. Write out the algebraic equation that is the human heart and multiply each unknown by the population of the world.
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The typical old-fashioned diet was so bad it almost resembled modern dieting.
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In fact, safety has no place anywhere. Everything that's fun in life is dangerous. Horse races, for instance, are very dangerous. But attempt to design a safe horse and the result is a cow (an appalling animal to watch at the trotters.) And everything that isn't fun is dangerous too. It is impossible to be alive and safe.