P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Call a man ‘ignorant,’ and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.

The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.

There isn’t much room for an outsider point of view in print any more.

A U.S. dollar is an IOU from the Federal Reserve Bank. It’s a promissory note that doesn’t actually promise anything. It’s not backed by gold or silver.

The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.

I’m old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now.

When I’m in the car, I want the only one shouting to be me.

When 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.

I rarely meet a politician that I don’t like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.

If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama.