Call a man ‘ignorant,’ and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.
P. J. O'ROURKEWhen 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.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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Adam Smith’s huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.
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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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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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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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I’m old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now.
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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.
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I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a ‘learning experience.’ Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I’ve done as a ‘learning experience.’ It makes me feel less stupid.
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Explosion of positive rights started in 1932 with the election of Roosevelt.
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Liberals 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.
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No doubt the ridiculous politicians are right to like politics. They have found careers in which success can be achieved by being ridiculous. Imagine Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush rising to the top of any other profession.
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Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.
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The best and brightest don’t go into politics. The best and brightest are at Goldman Sachs.
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Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
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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.’
P. J. O'ROURKE