A P J Quotes & Sayings

If four things are followed - having a great aim, acquiring knowledge, hard work, and perseverance - then anything can be achieved. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

It takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how long you last. — P. J. O'Rourke

Remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot ... Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, 'Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?' — P. J. O'Rourke

I've always written poetry and lyrics. My first husband, who was a musician, we wrote a bunch of songs together. — P. J. Soles

The Sun Dagger appeared on the rock face directly above the Shaman's shadowed head. It dazzled within the shade as the sunlight slipped through a gap in the overhead slabs. The dagger cut slowly down the rock, slicing through the very center of the etched spiral.
"The middle of time," Chaco whispered to himself. — P.J. Parker

The preamble to the Constitution states: "We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare ... " It doesn't say "guarantee the general welfare." And it certainly doesn't say "give welfare benefits to all the people in the country who aren't doing so well even if the reason they aren't doing so well is because they're sitting on their butts in front of the TV". — P. J. O'Rourke

We are a nation that worships speed and power. And for good reason. Without power we would still be part of England and everybody would be out of work ... Bicycles are too slow and impuissant for a nation like ours. They belong in Czechoslovakia. — P. J. O'Rourke

communication is a two-party affair which aims at passing on or receiving a specific piece of information. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

How can I become an aeronautical scientist? — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

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

El Salvador has the scenery of northern California and the climate of southern California plus - and this was a relief - no Californians. — P. J. O'Rourke

One of the enduring problems with certain societies in the world - and this is certainly true of a lot of places in the Middle East - is that the capacity for self-governance and self-organizing just isn't there. It has to do with history. — P. J. O'Rourke

Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. — P. J. O'Rourke

With thimble and thread And wax and hammer, and buckles and screws, And all such things as geniuses use; - Two bats for patterns, curious fellows! A charcoal-pot and a pair of bellows. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

There are a number of Americans who shouldn't vote. The number is 57 percent, to judge by the combined total of Clinton and Perot ballots in the 1996 presidential election. — P. J. O'Rourke

As author P. J. O'Rourke puts it: Veal is a very young beef and, like a very young girlfriend, it's cute but boring and expensive. — Timothy Ferriss

No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic. — A.J.P. Taylor

Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do. — J. P. Morgan

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

I live in rural New Hampshire, and we are, frankly, short on people who are black, gay, Jewish, and Hispanic. In fact, we're short on people. My town has a population of 301. — P. J. O'Rourke

We just held each other for warmth. I cannot recall that we even spoke to one another. Such was our shock. That day we learnt a new word - war. — P.J. Whittlesea

The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around. — P. J. O'Rourke

War will exist as long as there's a food chain. — P. J. O'Rourke

When grand plans for scientific and defence technologies are made, do the people in power think about the sacrifices the people in the laboratories and fields have to make? — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Ginny Cupper took me in her car out to the spread fields of Indiana. Parking near the edge of woods and walking out into the sunny rows of corn, waving seeds to a yellow horizon. She wore a white blouse and a gray patch of sweat under her arms and the shadow of her nipples was gray. We were rich. So rich we could never die. Ginny laughed and laughed, white saliva on her teeth lighting up the deep red of her mouth, fed the finest food in the world. Ginny was afraid of nothing. She was young and old. Her brown arms and legs swinging in wild optimism, beautiful in all their parts. She danced on the long hood of her crimson Cadillac, and watching her, I thought that God must be female. She leaped into my arms and knocked me to the ground and screamed into my mouth. — J.P. Donleavy

No religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I was a disadvantaged child from a non-educated family, yet I had the advantage of being in the company of great teachers. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Ancient India was a knowledge society and a leader in many intellectual pursuits, particularly in the fields of mathematics, medicine and astronomy. A renaissance is imperative for us to once again become a knowledge superpower rather than simply providing cheap labour in areas of high technology. Summary — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I'm not a writer where I feel particularly blessed by great inspiration every day. I don't. I have to work really hard at it to try and say the things I'm concerned with. — P.J. Harvey

Kabul is a walled city, which sounds romantic except the walls are pre-cast reinforced concrete blast barriers, 10 feet tall and 15 feet long and moved into place with cranes. The walls are topped with sandbags, and the sandbags are topped with guard posts from which gun barrels protrude. — P. J. O'Rourke

Maybe it's understandable what a history of failures America's foreign policy has been. We are, after all, a country full of people who came to America to get away from foreigners. Any prolonged examination of the U.S. government reveals foreign policy to be America's miniature schnauzer
a noisy but small and useless part of the national household. — P. J. O'Rourke

I've got a 1990 Porsche 911. It's just a Carrera, a very simple, straightforward little thing that goes like stink. I love it. — P. J. O'Rourke

Humor is a terrific tool for explaining things, especially when what you're explaining is frightening or dull and complicated. — P. J. O'Rourke

Mr. Dawkins' assertions are self-refuting- ie. Actual infinity vs. potential infinity easily makes the most reasonable argument for theism and a Deity. Now, the argument for the Creator God of Christianity requires much more time, energy, and logical effort."


~R. Alan Woods [2007] — R. Alan Woods

I grew up going to public school, and they were huge public schools. I went to a school that had 3,200 kids, and I had grade school classes with 40-some kids. Discipline was rigid. Most of the learning was rote. It worked. — P. J. O'Rourke

Sometimes, it's better to bunk a class and enjoy with friends, because now, when I look back, marks never make me laugh, but memories do. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

The main reason to be opposed to political control of smoking is to keep power -even the smallest and silliest kind of power - out of the hands of ... members of a dangerous class -the class that knows what's good for us better than we do. — P. J. O'Rourke

What Alexander Graham Bell thought up occupied less space than a flower vase. Now it's so small that I have to search all my pockets to discover I've received a spam text. — P. J. O'Rourke

Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance. — P. J. O'Rourke

Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don't. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw? — P. J. O'Rourke

Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope. — P. J. O'Rourke

There is one type of gambling which should always be encouraged. It is betting on goodness. When a person has wronged you, be good to him. If he adds insult to injury, double the bet. And keep on doubling it. You will surely win! — J.P. Vaswani

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." — P. J. O'Rourke

I suspect the soviets never did want to use those bombs. The most Stalinist of Soviet hard-liners - Stalin, for example - must have realized a nuclear war would be a hard thing to clean up after. — P. J. O'Rourke

The key ingredient of politics is the idea that all of society's ills can be cured politically. It's like a cookbook where the recipe for everything is to fry it. The fruit cocktail is fried. — P. J. O'Rourke

A lot of newspaper columns used to be written in a rat-a-tat-tat, fast-paced style - and they tended to be funny. They were a little relief from the grimmer, grayer parts of the newspaper, and one of the best people at doing this was Will Rogers. — P. J. O'Rourke

Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats. — P. J. O'Rourke

Funding for the original manned Voyager Mars Program was scratched in 1968, before humans had gotten out of Low Earth Orbit. Mid-'60s plans for a Venus fly-by with astronauts actually flying by it met the same fate. — P. J. O'Rourke

Anybody has a right to evade taxes if he can get away with it. No citizen has a moral obligation to assist in maintaining his government — J. P. Morgan

A master of improvised speech and improvised policies. — A.J.P. Taylor

To become 'unique,' the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Passover is my idea of a perfect holiday. Dear God, when you're handing out plagues of darkness, locusts, hail, boils, flies, lice, frogs, and cattle murrain, and turning the Nile to blood and smiting the firstborn, give me a pass. And tell me when it's over. — P. J. O'Rourke

He was heartbroken, I say.

Heartbroken, he repeats. Of course. That's the great myth Edward Monkford's spun around himself, isn't it? The tormented genius who lost the love of his life and became an arch-minimalist as a result.

You don't think that's right?

I know it isn't. — J.P. Delaney

Bill Clinton is not a hypocrite. If a man believes that it is just and moral to redistribute wealth, there is nothing hypocritical in his attempts to redistribute some of that wealth to himself. — P. J. O'Rourke

The principal 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

To really enjoy drugs you've got to want to get out of where you are. But there are some wheres that are harder to get out of than others. This is the drug-taking problem for adults. Teenage Weltscbmerz is easy to escape. But what drug will get a grown-up out of, for instance, debt? — P. J. O'Rourke

Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914. — A.J.P. Taylor

If I were a congressman who had voted for the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, I'd claim it was forced on our country by a sinister international organization. — P. J. O'Rourke

The hands-on approach takes an active interest on a very regular basis in the members' work. The hands-off approach trusts team members and recognizes their need for autonomy to carry out their roles, as they see fit. It hinges on their self-motivation. When the leader goes too far with the hands-on approach, he is seen as an anxious and interfering type. If he goes too far hands-off, he is seen as abdicating his responsibility or not being interested. Today, — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

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. — P. J. O'Rourke

God maintains a delicate balance between keeping his existence sufficiently evident so people will know he's there and yet hiding his presence enough so that people who want to choose to ignore him can do it. This way, their choice of destiny is really free. — J.P. Moreland

My dad died when I was young; my mom remarried with more haste than sense to a fellow ... he wasn't evil or anything, but he was worthless. — P. J. O'Rourke

There was also a hunger strike in front of the National Press Club, which seemed an odd place to have a hunger strike (a cocktail fast, maybe). Although the Bangladeshis were savvy enough to know to know that if you're going to pester journalists, don't go to where they work: You'll never find them there. — P. J. O'Rourke

I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don't have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry. — P. J. O'Rourke

Sky is the Limit — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Don't take rest after your first victory because if you fail in second, more lips are waiting to say that your first victory was just luck. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

War is never a lasting solution for any problem. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I've been a New Yorker for ten years, and the only people who are nice to us turn out to be Moonies. — P. J. O'Rourke

Gosh, was I wrong. Never listen to a pundit. Is there such a thing as "magnetic back-assward"? We pundits and commentators have had our compass needles pointed in that direction for the past eighteen months. Want a stock tip? I would — P. J. O'Rourke

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

The Constitution is an equally forthright piece of work and quite succinct ... giving the complete operating instructions for a nation of 250 million people. The manual for a Toyota Camry, which only seats five, is four times as long. — P. J. O'Rourke

The world would be a brighter, happier place, if we could only remember our childhood wonder. — P.J. Roscoe

There was a man
Who made a boat
To sail away
And it sank. — J.P. Donleavey

Actually, there is no way of making vomiting courteous. You have to do the next best thing, which is to vomit in such a way that the story you tell about it later will be amusing. — P. J. O'Rourke

History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work. — A.J.P. Taylor

14Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise h partook of the same things, that i through death he might j destroy k the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and deliver all those who l through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he m helps the offspring of Abraham. 17Therefore he had n to be made like his brothers in every respect, o so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest p in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18For because he himself has suffered q when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. — Anonymous

Nothing is inevitable until it happens. — A.J.P. Taylor

A man of few words,
I just sit still on this hill,
I know death will persist,
I write when my mind is still,
I bleed daily to exist. — P.J. Bayliss

If everybody's behavior can be explained by simple stupidity and greed, there's no point in assuming a conspiracy. — P. J. Plauger

It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money. — P. J. O'Rourke

This is my belief: that through difficulties and problems God gives us the opportunity to grow. So when your hopes and dreams and goals are dashed, search among the wreckage, you may find a golden opportunity hidden in the ruins'. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

A teacher should have a creative mind. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Men generally pay for all expenses on a date ... either sex, however, may bring a little gift, its value to be determined by the bizarrness of the sexual request to be made later that evening. — P. J. O'Rourke

My mom is a sculptress. — P.J. Harvey

Hey, asshole," Lash said to the sw'old-up one, "your boyfriend give you those p-tats? Or was he too busy fucking you in the ass?" The guy's eyes narrowed. "What'd you say to me?" The gangbanger shook his head. "Gotta be out ya damn mind, white boy." Skinhead laughed like a blender, high and fast. Who knew recruiting would be this easy, Lash thought. * — J.R. Ward

Not being a liberal, I have very little grasp of things that I know nothing about. — P. J. O'Rourke

Dream is not what you see in sleep; is the thing which doesn't let you sleep — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I think I'm a songwriter. I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I'm not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano. — P.J. Harvey

People like to talk about clean slates. But the only truly clean slate is a new one. The rest are gray from whatever's been written on them before. — J.P. Delaney

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

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Dream is not the thing you see in sleep but is that thing that doesn't let you sleep. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Some taxpayers may object to a print journalism bailout on the grounds that it mostly benefits the liberal elite. And we can't blame taxpayers for being reluctant to subsidize the reportorial careers of J-school twerps who should have joined the Peace Corps and gone to Africa to 'speak truth to power' to Robert Mugabe. — P. J. O'Rourke

America is the world's policeman, all right
a big, dumb, mick flatfoot in the middle of the one thing cops dread most, a domestic disturbance. — P. J. O'Rourke

Our regulatory bodies strive to create honest dealings, fair trades, and a situation in which no one has an advantage over anyone else. But human beings aren't honest. And all trades are made because one person thinks he's getting the better of the other, and the other person thinks the same. — P. J. O'Rourke

With songs I almost see the images, see the action, and then all I have to do is describe it. It's almost like watching a scene from a film, and that's what I go about trying to catch in a song. — P.J. Harvey

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. — P. J. O'Rourke

Ann Coulter to me is someone who says things that I say all the time, but I say them at three in the morning when I'm drunk as a monkey. She says them at three in the afternoon stone sober in bright daylight. — P. J. O'Rourke