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A fundamental American question is, ‘What’s the big idea?’

P. J. O'Rourke

It’s better to make fun of yourself because you’ve always got someone around to make fun of, and they can’t sue you.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Always Better Fun Make Someone Sure You
Everybody in the Middle East wants to explain why they’re right.
P. J. O'ROURKE

East Everybody Explain Middle Right
Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I’m not even sure we can draw lessons from them.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Draw Exceptional Happiness History Human Island Litle Peace Point Prosperity Sure
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Animal Children Eat Exception Human Purpose
Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Biological Child Each Fact Fatherhood Mother Requires Well
There is no horizon in Toledo. There are too many trees.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Horizon Many Toledo Tree
I’m too tough and sensitive to have to have some pubescent twerp with his mom’s earring in his tongue, who combs his hair with Redi-Whip and has an Ani DiFranco tattoo on his shin, come show me how a computer works.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Earn Earring Mom Pubescent Sensitive Some Tongue Toug Twerp
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'ROURKE

Behind Bench Election House Official Seat Senate Chair Whole
Israel is slightly smaller than New Jersey. Moses in effect led the tribes of Israel out of the District of Columbia, parted Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, and wandered for forty years in Delaware.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Bay Country Effect Small Tribe
Preachers at black churches are the last people left in the English-speaking world who know the schemes and tropes of classical rhetoric: parallelism, antithesis, epistrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, periphrasis, litotes – the whole bag of tricks.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Black Church Classical English People Preach Scheme Speak Troop
If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat – in other words, turn you into an adult.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Adult Deal Great Health Mind Other Slow Spoil Turn Word Young
No humorist is under any obligation to provide answers and probably if you were to delve into the literary history of humour it’s probably all about not providing answers because the humorist essentially says: this is the way things are.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Answer History Human Humor Literacy Obligation Probably Provide Under
Supposedly, summer vacation happens because that’s when the kids are home from school, although having the kids home from school is no vacation. And supposedly the kids are home from school because of some vestigial throwback to our agricultural past.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Done Endless Foreigner God Like Lousy Party Politics School Some Thing Wrong
The idea of a stag hunt evokes chivalry – knights in jerkins and hose, ladies on sidesaddles with wimples and billowing dresses, a white stag symbolizing something-or-other, and Robin Hood getting in the way. An actual stag hunt is more like a horseback meeting of a county planning commission.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Billow Chivalry Dress Health Jerkin Knight Lady Sidesaddle Think Wimple
Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Annoyance Conundrum Necessary Politics
All change is bad. But sometimes it has to be done.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Bad Change Done Sometimes

A fundamental American question is, ‘What’s the big idea?’

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A fundamental American question is, ‘What’s the big idea?’

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