Inspirational Quotes by P. J. O’Rourke (American Journalist)

Farm policy, although it’s complex, can be explained. What it can’t be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, D.C., videotaped in flagrant has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Farming

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Parents

Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about “character issues.” Either that or just go ahead and determine the presidency with three-legged races and pie-eating contests. It would make better TV.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Elections, Voting

Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Identity, Stupidity

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Government

The principle feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things—war and hunger and date rape—liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things. It’s a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don’t have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Liberalism

One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Responsibility

You’ll notice that the term ‘morale’ is never used except in reference to soldiers or people in analogous positions, such as employees of large corporations or prison inmates.
—P. J. O’Rourke

Golf combines two favorite American pastimes: taking long walks and hitting things with a stick
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Golf

Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are, literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations.
—P. J. O’Rourke

Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who’s out in front of nobody? Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: America

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.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Children, Funny quotes

People shouldn’t be treated like objects. They aren’t that valuable.
—P. J. O’Rourke

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Drugs, Ignorance

Good manners can replace morals. It may be years before anyone knows if what you are doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Manners

Newsmen believe that news is a tacitly acknowledged fourth branch of the federal system. This is why most news about government sounds as if it were federally mandated—serious, bulky and blandly worthwhile, like a high-fiber diet set in type.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: News

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Government

In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a three-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes. Now they’re lunch, and we’re number one on the planet.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Socialism, Communism

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Bureaucracy

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Politics

You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Giving, Poverty, The Poor

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.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Twentieth Century

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: One liners, Government

Traffic is like a bad dog. It isn’t important to look both ways when crossing the street. It’s important to not show fear.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Fear

The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life—this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Government

Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Angels

There are no kinder or better people in the world than those who listen to you when you’re 18.
—P. J. O’Rourke

People are all exactly alike. There’s no such thing as a race and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we’d be the same breed. George Bush and an Australian Aborigine have fewer differences than a Lhasa apso and a toy fox terrier. A Japanese raised in Riyadh would be an Arab. A Zulu raised in New Rochelle would be an orthodontist. People are all the same, though their circumstances differ terribly.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: People

A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too.
—P. J. O’Rourke

Never fight an inanimate object.
—P. J. O’Rourke

There’s no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn’t invaded Kuwait that August and set everyone gearing up for World War II. Can we count on Saddam Hussein to come along every year and resolve our defense-policy debates? Given the history of the Middle East, it’s possible.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Security, Defense

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Government

In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Presidency

Majority rule is a precious, sacred thing worth dying for. But—like other precious, sacred things, such as the home and the family—it’s not only worth dying for; it can make you wish you were dead. Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stonewashed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And—since women are a majority of the population—we’d all be married to Mel Gibson.
—P. J. O’Rourke

Journalists aren’t supposed to praise things. It’s a violation of work rules almost as serious as buying drinks with our own money or absolving the CIA of something.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Journalism

Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste and style mixed together so that you don’t need any of those things.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Manners

Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Motherhood

Nothing bad is going to happen to us. If we get fired, it’s not failure; its a midlife vocational reassessment.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Optimism

Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Welfare

Some people are better imagined in one’s bed than found there in the morning.
—P. J. O’Rourke
Topics: Sex

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