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.
P. J. O'ROURKEJust because a subject is serious doesn’t mean it doesn’t have plenty of absurdities.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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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.
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I don’t even know which end of a computer one is supposed to gaze into. I’ve never used a computer.
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Russians not only vehemently despise blacks, they believe Africa begins at the Ukraine border.
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Nobody is making Americans buy Chinese goods.
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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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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.
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Let’s reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools – and use it on the teachers.
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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.
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Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
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Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
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They are just really stupid people in Hollywood. You write them a script, and they say they love it, they absolutely love it. Then they say, ‘But doesn’t it need a small dog, and an Eskimo, and shouldn’t it be set in New Guinea?’ And you say, ‘But it is a sophisticated romantic comedy set in Paris.’
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Once you’ve built the big machinery of political power, remember you won’t always be the one to run it.
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Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.
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Southern California is a nice place, if you could cut out the show-business cancer. It just keeps spreading.
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Everybody is xenophobic to an extent.
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If you think health care is expensive now, just wait ’til it’s free.
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The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.
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The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
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Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
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Some people have facts; these can be proven. Some people have theories; these can be disproven. But people with opinions are mindless and have their minds made up about it.
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A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
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Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.
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The world is being run by irresponsible spoiled brats.
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You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they’re going.
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A fundamental American question is, ‘What’s the big idea?’
P. J. O'ROURKE