The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
P. J. O'ROURKEBecause of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
-
-
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'ROURKE -
Barack Obama is more irritating than the other nuisances on the Left.
P. 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'ROURKE -
Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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 -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.
P. 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'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'ROURKE -
Liberals have invented whole college majors – psychology, sociology and women’s studies – to prove that nothing is anybody’s fault.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
Adam Smith’s huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE -
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.
P. J. O'ROURKE