The young are adept at learning, but even more adept at avoiding it.
P. J. O'ROURKEThe 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.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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The problem with public school is not overcrowding in the classroom. The problem is not teacher unions. The problem is not underfunding or lack of computer equipment. The problem is your damn kids.
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I rarely meet a politician that I don’t like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.
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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.
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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
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Regulation creates a moral hazard.
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You’re never going to read ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ and you shouldn’t, really. It’s 900 pages.
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There is one thing women can never take away from men. We die sooner.
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The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore.
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I read good. I was an English major.
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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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Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
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Globalization is simply opening the free marketplace to encompass the entire world.
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Everybody in the Middle East wants to explain why they’re right.
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If we heard that somebody starved to death in Sweden or Switzerland, we would be shocked.
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Supposedly, summer vacation happens because that’s when the kids are home from school, although having the kids home from school is no vacation. And supposedly the kids are home from school because of some vestigial throwback to our agricultural past.
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I was very much in favor of the Iraq invasion.
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Global warming is a fact. Now it’s up to liberals to make it a reality. Hence there is crucial importance in preventing powerful, greedy free market forces from getting in the way of worsening storms and rising sea levels. The Kyoto Accord is a good first step.
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Liberals have invented whole college majors – psychology, sociology and women’s studies – to prove that nothing is anybody’s fault.
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Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.
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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.
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The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.
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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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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.
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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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Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don’t draft people; it’s not jury duty.
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The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
P. J. O'ROURKE