If you ask the government to solve all of your problems, it’s a bit like asking your wife to cook and clean, to raise the children, to hold down a second job to help with the family finances, to keep her parents happy and well and keep your parents happy and well, and to also – to do the lawn and clean the gutters.
P. J. O'ROURKE
P. J. O'ROURKE
P. J. O'Rourke on cook
“If you ask the government to solve all of your problems, it’s a bit like asking your wife to cook and clean, to raise the children, to hold down a second job to help with the family finances, to keep her parents happy and well and keep your parents happy and well, and to also – to do the lawn and clean the gutters.”
More P. J. O'Rourke quotes
The most brilliant satire of all time was ‘A Modest Proposal’ by Jonathan Swift. You’ll notice how everything got straightened out in Ireland within days of that coming out.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke America wasn’t founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke 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'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke The beauty of democracy is that an average, random, unremarkable citizen can lead it.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Once you’ve built the big machinery of political power, remember you won’t always be the one to run it.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke A humorist doesn’t really do that much note-taking.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Stupid is a great force in human affairs.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke By the end of the 1950s, American cars were so reliable that their reliability went without saying even in car ads. Thousands of them bear testimony to this today, still running on the roads of Cuba though fueled with nationalized Venezuelan gasoline and maintained with spit and haywire.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke 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.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke I look around my house, and everything except the kids and dogs was made in China. And I’m not sure about the kids. They have brown eyes and small noses.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke 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'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke People think the free market is a philosophy, they think that it is a creed. It is none of those things. Free market is a bathroom scale, it is a measuring tape, it’s simply a measurement.
P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke