The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there’s a reason for that – the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent – No Child Left Behind.
P. J. O'ROURKE
P. J. O'ROURKE
P. J. O'Rourke on behind
P. J. O'Rourke174 quotes“The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there’s a reason for that – the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent – No Child Left Behind.”
More from P. J. O'Rourke
The Afghans themselves say that if you put two Afghans in a room, you get three factions.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke I believe in God. God created the world.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke The problem with public school is not overcrowding in the classroom. The problem is not teacher unions. The problem is not underfunding or lack of computer equipment. The problem is your damn kids.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke We will win an election when all the seats in the House and Senate and the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office and the whole bench of the Supreme Court are filled with people who wish they weren’t there.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he’s saving a parking place.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Head lice have their own animal-rights group, or may as well. The National Pediculosis Association doesn’t exactly advocate letting lice live with dignity, but it does oppose pediculicidal treatments.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Nobody is making Americans buy Chinese goods.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Gay marriage acceptance is happening in the blink of an eye.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke The budget doesn’t have much control over the government. Then again, the government doesn’t have much control over the budget.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Like most sensible people, you probably lost interest in modern art about the time that Julian Schnabel was painting broken pieces of the crockery that his wife had thrown at him for painting broken pieces of crockery instead of painting the bathroom and hall.
P. J. O'RourkeP. 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'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Agriculture is a business that has been up to its bib overalls in politics since the first Thanksgiving dinner kickback to the Indians for subsidizing Pilgrim maize production with fish head fertilizer grants.
P. J. O'RourkeP. 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.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke
Original quotes
From our community writers
My heart keeps room for you always even when you can’t be here.
Holly DuxburyHolly Duxbury You are seeing humanity at its worst and best. A collision of the circumstance.
Samantha King HolmesSamantha King Holmes Treat her like a dream. Follow her, pursue her, and always remind her that you’ll never give up on her.
Jenny AJenny A I care but I’m done trying. I love but I’m done showing.
Divya khandalDivya khandal Never feel defined by your size, measures, and beauty standards.
Jacklyn TysonJacklyn Tyson The wild is always changing like a reminder. You do not have to be the same to be beautiful.
Sabina LauraSabina Laura Bees and butterflies in my belly with you on my mind they chase each other around.
Jenny WinbladhJenny Winbladh I long for you but you long for someone else, I deny the one who wants me cause I want someone else.
Rupi KaurRupi Kaur
Meet the writers
More on behind
Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don’t begin thinking about education in the early years, our children are at risk of falling behind by the time they start Kindergarten.
Bob EhrlichBob Ehrlich Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world….
Black ElkBlack Elk Live so that when the final summons comes you will leave something more behind you than an epitaph on a tombstone or an obituary in a newspaper.
Billy SundayBilly Sunday When we are confronted by failure and mistakes, we can leave them behind and go on with our lives.
Benjamin CarsonBenjamin Carson Fashion: a barricade behind which men hide their nothingness.
Kin HubbardKin Hubbard Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame; He hides behind a magisterial air He own offences, and strips others’ bare.
William CowperWilliam Cowper A farmer’s horse is never lame, never unfit to go. Never throws out curbs, never breaks down before or behind.
Anthony TrollopeAnthony Trollope All we can take with us to heaven is what we leave behind in the lives we touch.
Barbara JohnsonBarbara Johnson