P&o Quotes & Sayings

I'm fascinated by political enthusiasm. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

The day you apologise for who you are is the day you give another control over who you are. — Shane K.P. O'Neill

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

Modern elites live in bubbles of liberal affluence like Ann Arbor, Brookline, the Upper West Side, Palo Alto, or Chevy Chase. These places used to have impoverished neighborhoods nearby, but the poor people got chased out by young singles living in group homes, hipsters, and urban homesteading gay couples. — P. J. O'Rourke

Californians are people who insist on growing their own vegetables, but they won't dig up the pretty lawn, won't plant anything for fear of getting dirty, and they use fragrant bath salts from The Body Shop instead of smelly compost. — P. J. O'Rourke

Guard for me my eyes, Jesus, Son of Mary, lest seeing others' wealth make me covetous. Guard for me my ears, lest they harken to slander, lest they listen to folly in the sinful world. Guard for me my heart, O Christ, in Thy love, lest I ponder wretchedly the desire of any iniquity. Guard for me my hands, that they be not stretched out for quarreling, or practice shameful idleness. Guard for me my feet upon the gentle earth. . . . lest they be bent on profitless errands. Amen. - ANCIENT IRISH PRAYER — David P. Gushee

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

President Clinton commenced the blathering with orotund — 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

This country was founded by religious nuts with guns. — P. J. O'Rourke

O sit and wait for joy to arrive without turning your mind to the things of Christ is like expecting the Holy Spirit to take 15 pounds off your body while sitting on the couch eating ice cream (p. 57). — Hayley DiMarco

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

No industry in living memory has collapsed faster than daily print journalism. — P. J. O'Rourke

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 I started my program ... there was a big clock in the corner and I looked and it said nine o'clock exactly. And it was funny, because when I was standing on the podium, it said exactly 10 p.m., and this whole hour had changed my life. — Sarah Hughes

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

Same day, 11 o'clock p. m.. - Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything, except of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital 'severe tea' at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little oldfashioned inn, with a bow window right over the seaweedcovered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the 'New Woman' with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. — Bram Stoker

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

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

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

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

As a hip-hop artist who likes fashion, who can't help but notice people like Kanye West, Tiger, Big Sean and definitely T.I.P. These guys really understand how to be progressive and fashion forward. — B.o.B

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

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

I look around my house, and everything except the kids and dogs was made in China. And I'm not sure about the kids. They have brown eyes and small noses. — P. J. O'Rourke

I took one look at the beautiful morning, staggered back into my house and fell into bed. My preferred method of dealing with mornings is to sleep right through them. When you spend your nights killing vampires and evading your mortal enemy, sleep takes precedence over postcard sunrises." -Regan O'Connell, The Music of Chaos — P. Kirby

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

Liberal" is one of those fine English words, like "lady" "gay" or "welfare" that have been spoiled by special pleading. So by "liberal I certainly don't mean tolerant or open-handed people or even big-government Democrats. I mean anyone who is excited that 1% of Ben and Jerry's profits go to promote world peace. — 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

Taxi drivers all over the world, by the way, are under Newspaper Guild contract to give easy quotes to foreign correspondents. — P. J. O'Rourke

The people I see on bicycles look like organic-gardening zealots who advocate federal regulation of bedtime and want American foreign policy to be dictated by UNICEF. These people should be confined. — P. J. O'Rourke

President Obama has contempt for real money. — 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

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

I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh; therefore I usually don't listen to him. — P. J. O'Rourke

Commies love concrete. — P. J. O'Rourke

If you want to join the Republican party, they have to let you in. There's nothing they can do about it. I mean, if Republicans will take Al D'Amato, they'll take anybody. — P. J. O'Rourke

The poor are an especially important resource for innovation when they have the bravery and pluck to get out of the poor places in which they're living. — P. J. O'Rourke

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 people who despise America are the editors of the 'New Statesman.' Their green-card applications must have been turned down. — 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

I like to argue with the radio. — P. J. O'Rourke

Even if only one guerilla cub survives the prolonged struggle, I am confident that he will raise the flag of Palestine overJerusalem ... Jerusalem is destined to be the eternal capital of our sovereign, independent Palestinian state under the P.L.O. leadership. — Yasser Arafat

People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively. — P. J. O'Rourke

Democrats hate Democrats most of all. — P. J. O'Rourke

34 n It is like a man o going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants [2] in charge, p each with his work, and commands q the doorkeeper to stay awake. 35 r Therefore stay awake - for — Anonymous

Politics is the art of achieving prestige and power without merit. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

Ending wars is very simple if you surrender. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

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 is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. — 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

This is the most elaborate and luxurious method of convincing others that you can cook. Take everybody out on your yacht until they're green in the face. Then you can rave for weeks about your sauce marinara and no one will gainsay you.. — 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

Never strike anyone so old, small or weak that verbal abuse would have sufficed. — P. J. O'Rourke

Political discourse has become so rotten that it's no longer possible to tell the stench of one presidential candidate from the stink of another. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

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

Jewishness cropped up and has never successfully been put down since. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

There's one more terrifying fact about old people: I'm going to be one soon. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

Wealth makes materialism easier to bear. — P. J. O'Rourke

I don't watch much television. — P. J. O'Rourke

The America's Cup is like driving your Lamborgini to the Gran Prix track to watch the charter buses race. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

If we are to survive the Atomic Age, we must have something to live by, to live on, and to live for. We must stand aside from the world's conspiracy of fear and hate and grasp once more the great monosyllables of life: faith, hope and love. Men must live by these if they live at all under the crushing weight of history. — O. P. Kretzmann

You can't get good chinese takeout in China and cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism. — 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

The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop. — P. J. O'Rourke

What use is it to endure the Dutch Rubs and Indian Rope Burns that are politics if you can't obtain mastery over people and give them noogies back? — P. J. O'Rourke

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

What would annoy the most people most often? That is the true left-wing test of government intervention. — 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

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

If you talk to most businessmen, they'll say that what they do is for the public good, but you know they're just greedy, and consumers are just consuming for the sake of their own greed. — P. J. O'Rourke

Popular culture has become engorged, broadening and thickening until it's the only culture anyone notices. — P. J. O'Rourke

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

The idea of capitalism is not just success but also the failure that allows success to happen. — P. J. O'Rourke

PSALM 150. u Praise the LORD! Praise God in his m sanctuary; praise him in n his mighty heavens! [1] ps150v2 2 Praise him for his o mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent p greatness! ps150v3 3. Praise him with q trumpet sound; praise him with r lute and r harp! ps150v4 4 Praise him with s tambourine and s dance; praise him with t strings and u pipe! ps150v5 5 Praise him with sounding v cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! ps150v6 6 Let w everything that has breath praise the LORD! — Anonymous

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

Germans respond well to lies. At least, they always have historically. — 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

Relationship. R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P means this: Really exciting love affair turns into overwhelming nightmare. Sobriety hangs in peril. — Gary Busey

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

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