P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

• Satire doesn’t effect change.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Change

• We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human Nature

• All change is bad. But sometimes it has to be done.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Change

• I don’t even know which end of a computer one is supposed to gaze into. I’ve never used a computer.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Computer

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

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government

• People will tell you anything but what they do is always the truth.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in People

• I’m a political conservative.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Political

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

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Point Of View

• My wife and I both come from Irish families. There are two kinds of Irish families: the hitting kind and the kidding kind. If you’re fortunate – and both of us are – you come from the kidding kind of Irish family.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Family

  Tags in Wife

• I’m really tired of virtue.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Try

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

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American

• Southern California is a nice place, if you could cut out the show-business cancer. It just keeps spreading.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Business

• There are plenty of problems in the world, and doubtless climate change – or whatever the currently voguish phrase for it all is – certainly is one of them. But it’s low on my list.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Change, Climate

• People are always angry at America. They’re absolutely certain that America either caused their problems or is deliberately not fixing their problems. But the anger is always directed at America and never at Americans.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in America

  Tags in American

• I realised the bohemian life was not for me. I would look around at my friends, living like starving artists, and wonder, ‘Where’s the art?’ They weren’t doing anything. And there was so much interesting stuff to do, so much fun to be had… maybe I could even quit renting.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Art, Life

  Tags in Living

• I write because I like to make things and the only things I am good at making things with are words.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Write, Words

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Like, Making

• No humorist is under any obligation to provide answers and probably if you were to delve into the literary history of humour it’s probably all about not providing answers because the humorist essentially says: this is the way things are.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Humor

  Tags in Humorist

• Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Politics

  Tags in Government

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

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Politics

  Tags in Politician

P. J. O'Rourke (107)

Birth:	14th November, 1947
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Journalist, Politician, Satirist, Writer

About

P. J. O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. In the United Kingdom, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s.

Related Authors

• Arthur Christiansen
• John Derbyshire
• Martha Gellhorn
• Linda Ellerbee
• Tristan Bernard
• George Packer
• Emile Zola
• Gay Talese
• Joel Chandler Harris
• Xinran

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 19th November

Births

• 1919 - Alan Young
• 1942 - Sharon Olds
• 1941 - Tommy George Thompson
• 1936 - Richard Alva Cavett
• 1957 - Ofra Haza

Deaths

• 1692 - Thomas Shadwell
• 1915 - Solomon Schechter
• 2004 - Terry Melcher
• 1971 - Xu Zhimo
• 1850 - Richard Mentor Johnson