P. J. O'Rourke Quotes - Page 8

Quotes about:

• Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don't. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Teacher, Writing, Thinking

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• The number of American presidential candidates varies with the sunspot cycle and the phases of the moon. Being a Republican, I'm backing Hillary Clinton. Because she could lose. The reason is not that she's a woman. The reason is that she's the particular woman who taught the 4th grade class that every man in America wished he were dead in. Hillary Clinton is Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. Hillary Clinton is "America's ex-wife."

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Football, Moon, Men

  "Letter to Our European Friends" by P. J. O'Rourke, www.weeklystandard.com. February 4, 2008.

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• Cats possess so many of the same qualities as some poeple that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Cat, People, Quality

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• The Democrats planned to fiddle while Rome burned. The Republicans were going to burn Rome, then fiddle.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Humorous, Party

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.30, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Think of what big governments have gotten up to in this century : not one, but two world wars, the gulag, the holocaust, aerial bombing of civilian population centers, the Berlin Wall, nuclear explosions, the post office. A wicked individual might want these, but he wouldn't have the cash and connections to get them. A villainous corporation could afford them but has to market the products. The Vietnam draft would be a tough sell for even the most fiendish businessmen. "Get shot! Get killed! Get diseases from foreign women who despise you in their hearts!"

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Wall, War, Heart

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• The people I see on bicycles look like organic-gardening zealots who advocate federal regulation of bedtime and want American foreign policy to be dictated by UNICEF. These people should be confined.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  People, Gardening, Want

  P. J. O'Rourke (2016). “Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of . . .”, p.94, Pan Macmillan

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• The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life - this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Real, Stupid, Government

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.4, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to collectivists, to people who believe that wealth is best obtained by redistribution, and that message is clear and concise . . . Egalitarianism is sinful; it's also cowardly.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Believe, Egalitarianism, People

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• You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Giving Money, People, Libertarian

  P.J. O'Rourke (1991). “PARLIAMENT OF WHORES A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”

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• Idealism is based on big ideas. And, as anybody who has ever been asked "What's the big idea?" knows, most big ideas are bad ones.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Ideas, Bigs, Idealism

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty”, p.256, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Moscow has changed. I was here in 1982, during the Brezhnev twilight, and things are better now. For instance, they've got litter. In 1982 there was nothing to litter with.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Humorous, Twilight

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer”, p.17, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wire... not killing yourself, basically. And in that manual, I found out - and it cost me a thousand dollars - that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don't, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. How am I supposed to know that? "It's in the manual."

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Years, Nuts, Two

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• The great thing about starting golf in your forties is that you can start golf in your forties. You can start other things in your forties but generally your wife makes you stop them, as Bill Clinton found out.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Golf, Wife, Bills

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.506, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Smoking is very bad for you and should only be done because it looks so good. People who don't smoke have a terrible time finding something polite to do with their lips.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  People, Smoking, Looks

  P. J. O'Rourke (1983). “Modern manners”, Dell Books

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• Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Gossip, Flattery, Objects

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People”, p.71, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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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.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Government, Feel Good, Feelings

  "Don't Give Up on ObamaCare Yet, Republicans" by David Harsanyi, www.realclearpolitics.com. March 28, 2013.

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• One of these suburbs is actually named Stalingrad, which goes to show that the French have learned nothing about politics since they guillotined all the smart people in 1793.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Smart, People

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About Thi”, p.192, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Humor is, by its nature, more truthful than factual.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Funny, Humor, Truthful

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.10, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• There's a certain kind of behavior in the Arab world that, to me, resembles the way young men behave when there is no significant influence from women in their lives.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Men, World, Way

  Conversation with P. J. O'Rourke, www.theatlantic.com. September, 2004.

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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.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Writing, Heart, World

  P.J. O'Rourke (2009). “On The Wealth of Nations: A Book that Shook the World”, p.85, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Never Refuse Wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn't drink must be an alcoholic.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Wine, Opinion, Odd

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People”, p.288, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• There's a current notion that you should "take charge of your disease." No thanks. I'm busy. I've got cancer. I'm willing to face having cancer. I'm not willing to face having cancer with homework. I promised Dr. Pipas and Dr. Zaki that I wouldn't show up with sheaves of printouts from the Internet containing everything on Wikipedia on malignancies. They each laughed with detectable notes of relief. Although I suspect my wife has made her way into the health blog ether. Fish oil pills, raw kelp, and other untoward substances started showing up on dinner plates after I was diagnosed.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Cancer, Oil, Wife

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• No government proposal more complicated than "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" ever works.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Government, Debt, Complicated

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut”, p.280, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste and style mixed together so that you don't need any of those things.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Good Man, Style, Together

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People”, p.4, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Government subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle: You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to do something you wouldn't do on your own, it is almost always paying you to do something stupid.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Stupid, Simple, Government

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty”, p.198, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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