P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

• Earnestness is stupidity sent to college.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in College

• Children must be considered in a divorce considered valuable pawns in the nasty legal and financial contest that is about to ensue.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Children

• 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 in Love, Power, Society

• America wasn’t founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in America

• Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Read, Reading

• After all, what is your host’s purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they’d have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Enjoy, Yourself

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Taste, Famous

• A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Hat

• When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Politics

• The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Politics

• 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

  Topics in Wedding

  Tags in Marriage

• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Money, Power

  Tags in Government, Giving, Like

• Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government, Good, Like, Feeling

• Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Democracy

  Tags in Government, Trouble

• Never fight an inanimate object.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Object, Never

• Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in More, Important

• Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Parents, Difficult

• If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Tags in Government

• If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat – in other words, turn you into an adult.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Teenage, Adulthood

• The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then get elected and prove it.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Tags in Conservatives, Liberals

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.

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