I like fiction and the kind of history that gives the grace and flavor of fiction to the past. No bloviation on current events, please. I can write that junk myself.
P. J. O'ROURKEAdam Smith’s huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.
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Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I’m not even sure we can draw lessons from them.
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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.
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The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.
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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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Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don’t draft people; it’s not jury duty.
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Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.
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In its worse forms, conservatism is a matter of ‘I hate strangers and anything that’s different.’
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Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.
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Call a man ‘ignorant,’ and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.
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Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino’s box.
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The divorce rate in 1946 was higher than it ever had been and as high as it ever would be until the ’70s. The reason was that prior relationships had not endured the strain of war.
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The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.
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Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.
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Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.
P. J. O'ROURKE