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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.

P. J. O'Rourke

The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Restaurant Review Start Student
You can’t destroy America by destroying our elite. Think about America’s elite. Think about it down through history. Destroy our elite, and about half the time, you’re doing us a favor.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Country Detroit Down Elite History Think
I’m old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Country Dirty Enough Now Old Over Remember
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

Behind Civil Downfall Government Importance Local State Treat War
Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Bad Family Love Messy Pattern Wallpaper
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Dosproven Fact Mindless Opinion People Some
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

Benefit Divorce Good Long Married Stay Sympathy Ter
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Bright Feel Good Government Look Quit Side
In its worse forms, conservatism is a matter of ‘I hate strangers and anything that’s different.’
P. J. O'ROURKE

Anything Conservatism Different Form Hate Matter Stranger Worse
The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Atomic Bed Big Bomb Century Idea Test
There is only one thing that gives me hope as a Republican, and that is the Democrats. It’s going to be hard to do a worse job running American than the Republicans have, but if anybody can do it, it’s the Democrats.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Democrat Great Hope Job One Republican Run Thing
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
The 1960s was an era of big thoughts. And yet, amazingly, each of these thoughts could fit on a T-shirt.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Big Each Era Shirt Thought
When you’re a war correspondent, the reader is for you because the reader is saying, ‘Gee, I wouldn’t want to be doing that.’ They’re on your side.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Correspondent Do Person Reader Say That Want
Stupid is a great force in human affairs.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Affair Force Great Human Stupid
If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Economic Hour Language People Place Political Seventy Social Spend Talk Two

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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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