P. J. O'Rourke Quotes And Sayings

Patrick Jake “P. J.” O’Rourke is an American political satirist and journalist. O’Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio’s game show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!. Since 2011 O’Rourke has been a columnist at The Daily Beast. In the United Kingdom, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s.

Let's Reintroduce Corporal Punishment In The Schools - And Use It On The Teachers.

Satire Doesn't Effect Change.

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.

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.

The Good News Is That, According To The Obama Administration, The Rich Will Pay For Everything. The Bad News Is That, According To The Obama Administration, You're Rich.

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.

If Death Weren't Around To 'Finalize' The Darwinian Process, We'd All Still Be Amoebas.

Fascism Is Very Much A Mob Movement.

I'm A Member Of The 1960s Generation. We Didn't Have Any Wisdom.

Positive Rights Are The Right To Shelter, The Right To Education, The Right To Health Care, The Right To A Living Wage. These Things Are - These Are, I Would Call Them, More Properly, Political Rights Rather Than Positive Rights. And They Are Extremely Tricky, Because Now We Are Dealing With Things That Are Zero Sum.

The Good Thing About Suvs Is They Have Storage.

As A Former Writer For The 'National Lampoon,' I've Probably Contributed To The Sea Of Sarcasm In Which We Live.

I Rarely Meet A Politician That I Don't Like Personally. They Are Generally Well Endowed With Charm. Therein Lies The Danger.

Now, Do I Think The Baby Boomers Tend To Be Self-absorbed? I Do.

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.

Simply Because Something Is A Populist Movement Doesn't Make It Either Good Or Bad.

I Am Unboreable In The Great Outdoors.

The Most Brilliant Satire Of All Time Was 'A Modest Proposal' By Jonathan Swift. You'll Notice How Everything Got Straightened Out In Ireland Within Days Of That Coming Out.

Libertarianism Is A Way Of Measuring How The Government And Other Kinds Of Systems Respect The Individual. At The Core Of Libertarianism Is The Idea That The Individual Is Sacrosanct And That Anything That's Done Contrary To The Well-being Of The Individual Needs Some Pretty Serious Justification.

Ending Wars Is Very Simple If You Surrender.

The Minute Somebody Joins A Committee... They Immediately Suffer From Committee Brain. They Become Wildly Over-enthusiastic, Over-optimistic, Over-pessimistic. Committees Turn People Into Idiots, And Politics Is A Committee.

Disney's House Of The Future Had The Clean Simplicity Prized In The 1950s As Relief From Decades Of Frayed Patchwork, Jury-rigging, And Make-do Clutter Caused By Depression And War.

Finland Is A Rich Country. What Have They Got? They Got Nokia Phones And Plywood. How'd They Get So Rich? Because They're Free.

Children Live In The Only Successful Marxist State Ever Created: The Family. 'From Each According To His Ability, To Each According To His Need' Is The Family's Practice As Well As Its Theory. Even With Today's Scattershot Patterns Of Marriage And Parenting, A Family Is Collectivist To A More Than North Korean Degree.

The Poor Are An Especially Important Resource For Innovation When They Have The Bravery And Pluck To Get Out Of The Poor Places In Which They're Living.

The Budget Doesn't Have Much Control Over The Government. Then Again, The Government Doesn't Have Much Control Over The Budget.

What Is Obnoxious About The Motives Of Politicians - Whatever Those Motives May Be - Is That Politicians Must Announce Their Motives As Visionary And Grand.

As A Nation, Kuwait Has Been, Arguably, Free Of Freedom Itself. Claimed In Turn By Constantinople, Riyadh, And Baghdad, Kuwait Has Survived By Playing Turks Off Persians, Arabs Off One Another, And The English Off Everyone.

Every Vote Should Carry A Serial Number, So That Responsibility For Harmful Or Careless Use Of The Vote Can Be Traced. Concealed Voting Should Be Outlawed.

The Whole Melodrama Of The Middle East Would Be Improved If Amnesia Were As Common Here As It Is In Melodramatic Plots.

The Idea Of A World Where All People Are Alike - In Wealth Or In Anything Else - Is A Fantasy For The Stupid.

Why Do Elites Hate The Poor? It's Xenophobia. They Don't Know Any Poor People - Except Their Off-the-books Brazilian Nanny And Illegal Immigrant Cleaning Lady From Upper Revolta Who Don't Speak English.

The C Student Starts A Restaurant. The A Student Writes Restaurant Reviews.

The Great Majority Of Baghdad Is A Slum - A Lot Of It's New, But It's Still Slum. It's Usually This Concrete-block, One-room Design With A Door And A Window, Arranged One-up, One-down, Often With A Shop With Nothing In It On The First Floor, And Then A One-room Apartment Above It. There's Street After Street After Street Of That Stuff.

Modern Elites Live In Bubbles Of Liberal Affluence Like Ann Arbor, Brookline, The Upper West Side, Palo Alto, Or Chevy Chase. These Places Used To Have Impoverished Neighborhoods Nearby, But The Poor People Got Chased Out By Young Singles Living In Group Homes, Hipsters, And Urban Homesteading Gay Couples.

The Nobel Peace Prize Has Always Been A Joke - Albeit A Grim One. Alfred Bernhard Nobel Famously Invented Dynamite And Felt Sorry About It.

The 18,000 Nasa Employees Are Full Of Galactic Talents And Abilities And Are Ready To Accomplish Whatever They're Directed To Do.

Even Jimmy Carter Can't Be Wrong All The Time.

My Working Hypothesis Is That Stupidity In Popular Culture Is A Constant. Popular Culture Cannot Get More Stupid.

Our Earliest Evidence Of Government, In The Ruins Of Babylon And Egypt, Shows Nothing But Ziggurats And Pyramids Of Wasted Taxpayer Money, The Tarp Funds And Shovel-ready Stimulus Programs Of Their Day.

America's Grossly Unfair Tax System Won't Lead To Class War. Or, If It Does, The War Will Be Brief.

Horses And Horsepower Alike Are About Status And Being Cool.

Soccer Matches Should Be Something Special, Something People Eagerly Look Forward To, Something That Brightens Life.

When Buying And Selling Are Controlled By Legislation, The First Things To Be Bought And Sold Are Legislators.

A U.s. Dollar Is An Iou From The Federal Reserve Bank. It's A Promissory Note That Doesn't Actually Promise Anything. It's Not Backed By Gold Or Silver.

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.

America Wasn't Founded So That We Could All Be Better. America Was Founded So We Could All Be Anything We Damned Well Pleased.

There Is A Simple Rule Here, A Rule Of Legislation, A Rule Of Business, A Rule Of Life: Beyond A Certain Point, Complexity Is Fraud. You Can Apply That Rule To Left-wing Social Programs, But You Can Also Apply That Rule To Credit Derivatives, Hedge Funds, All The Rest Of It.

Making Fun Of Born-again Christians Is Like Hunting Dairy Cows With A High Powered Rifle And Scope.

The Proper Behavior All Through The Holiday Season Is To Be Drunk. This Drunkenness Culminates On New Year's Eve, When You Get So Drunk You Kiss The Person You're Married To.