P.J. O'Rourke > Quotes

“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People

“Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Drugs have taught an entire generation of kids the metric system”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Everybody wants to save the world but nobody wants to help mom with the dishes.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Never wear anything that panics the cat.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“It's better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The average IQ in America is—and this can be proven mathematically—average.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“We had a choice between Democrats who couldn't learn from the past and Republicans who couldn't stop living in it...”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there is nothing in the mall and if you don't go there they shoot you.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“A hat should be taken off when greeting a lady, and left off the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People

“There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Politicians are wonderful people as longa as they stay away from things they don't understand, such as working for a living.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Guns are always the best method for a private suicide. They are more stylish looking than single-edged razor blades and natural gas has got so expensive. Drugs are too chancy. You might miscalculate the dosage and just have a good time.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

“People are all exactly alike. There's no such thing as a race and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we'd be the same breed. George Bush and an Australian Aborigine have fewer differences than a Lhasa apso and a toy fox terrier. A Japanese raised in Riyadh would be an Arab. A Zulu raised in New Rochelle would be an orthodontist. People are all the same, though their circumstances differ terribly.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. ”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a "learning experience." Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a "learning experience." It makes me feel less stupid.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us. ”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“There's a joke people tell in the Soviet Union: Mitterrand, Bush and Gorbachev have a meeting with God. Mitterrand says, 'My country faces many difficult problems-- lagging exports, Muslim minorities, European unification. How long will it be before France's problems are solved?' God says, 'Fifteen years.' Mitterrand begins to cry. 'I'm an old man,' says Mitterrand. 'I'll be dead by then. I'll never see France's problems solved.' Then Bush says, 'My country faces many difficult problems-- recession, crime, racial prejudice. How long will it be before America's problems are solved?' God says, 'Ten years.' Bush begins to cry. 'I'm an old man,' says Bush. 'I'll be out of office by then. I won't get any credit for solving America's problems.' Then Gorbachev says, 'My country faces many, many difficult problems. How long will it be before the Soviet Union's problems are solved?' God begins to cry.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“When are the world's political parties going to get appropriate symbols: snake, louse, jackal, ... trash can, clown face, ... dollar bill with bat wings on it?”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World

“Never fight an inanimate object.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“There are no kinder or better people in the world than those who listen to you when you are 18.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“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

“Nature will get rights as soon as it gets duties. The minute we see birds, trees, bugs, squirrels picking up litter, giving money to charity, and keeping an eye on our kids at the park, we'll let them vote.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World

“I have been told by the third grade teacher that my daughter Poppet is reading at middle school level. Yet if I leave Poppet a note in block letters telling her to feed the dogs I will come home to find the dogs have been ... given a swim in the above-ground pool, dressed in tutus, provided with hair weaves. What I will not find is that the dogs have been fed. 'I thought you wanted me to free the dogs,' says Poppet whose school district is not spending quite what D.C.'s is, thanks to voter rejection of the last school bond referendum.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“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.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, On The Wealth of Nations

“The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

“Veal is a very young beef and, like a very young girlfriend, it's cute but boring and expensive.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Everyone with any sense and experience in life would rather take his fellows one by one than in a crowd. Crowds are noisy, unreasonable and impatient. They can trample you easier than a single person can. And a crowd will never buy you lunch.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government

“To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.”
― P.J. O'Rourke