In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.
P. J. O'ROURKELiberals are always proposing perfectly insane ideas, laws that will make everybody happy, laws that will make everything right, make us live forever, and all be rich. Conservatives are never that stupid.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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When I’m in the car, I want the only one shouting to be me.
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The body is forever teaching us lessons. There are all sorts of things that we can’t do, shouldn’t do, had better not do very often or do for too long as we get older. The body makes its presence known.
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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.
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Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.
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I like fiction and the kind of history that gives the grace and flavor of fiction to the past. No bloviation on current events, please. I can write that junk myself.
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Political leaders are expert at saying nothing.
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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.
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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.
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Globalization is simply opening the free marketplace to encompass the entire world.
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Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.
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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.
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Teasing and a sense of humor, if you can develop that in your kids, and if you can exercise it with the kids, just makes for a pleasanter atmosphere.
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My dad died when I was young; my mom remarried with more haste than sense to a fellow… he wasn’t evil or anything, but he was worthless.
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I was very much in favor of the Iraq invasion.
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Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce.
P. J. O'ROURKE






