Quotes by P. J. O'Rourke

About P. J. O'Rourke:

Patrick Jake 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!. Since 2011 O'Rourke has been a columnist at The Daily Beast. In the United Kingdom, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We all know the types who listen to Pete Seeger songs; even Pete admits they aren't interesting.

P. J. O'Rourke

Northwest Ohio is flat. There isn't much up. The land is so flat that a child from Toledo is under the impression that the direction hills go is down. Sledding is done down from street level into creek beds and road cuts.

P. J. O'Rourke

I've only been to New Zealand once, about 1989. It was incredibly beautiful, kind of like the ideal of where I live in New England - all that and then some - but I can't say I was there long enough to get any very clear idea.

P. J. O'Rourke

Liberals are always proposing perfectly insane ideas, laws that will make everybody happy, laws that will make everything right, make us live forever, and all be rich. Conservatives are never that stupid.

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

The job of the president of the United States is to talk to the public, is to explain to them. Now, some presidents talk too much, like Bill Clinton. Some presidents try to talk but don't know how, like George Bush senior.

P. J. O'Rourke

In Toledo, people grow out. Out to the suburbs. Out to the parts of America where the economy is more vigorous. And all too often, out to 48-inch waistbands.

P. J. O'Rourke

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

The American political system is like fast food--mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of things...and everybody wants some.

P. J. O'Rourke

I understand Twitter has become popular among politicians. This technology allows them to stay in perpetual contact with their constituents. The electorate now has instant information about what politicians have been up to.

P. J. O'Rourke

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

P. J. O'Rourke

I think it's been hard for people to understand how Islam can be a good religion, and yet the Islamists are evil. Those of us who have had experience with Islam understand this, just as we understand the difference between snake handlers and people g...

P. J. O'Rourke

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

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered.

P. J. O'Rourke

Adam Smith pointed out that there were three things that make us more prosperous, in a general sort of way: freedom to pursue our own self-interest; specialization, which he called division of labor; and freedom of trade.

P. J. O'Rourke

As a nation, Kuwait has been, arguably, free of freedom itself. Claimed in turn by Constantinople, Riyadh, and Baghdad, Kuwait has survived by playing Turks off Persians, Arabs off one another, and the English off everyone.

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

Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

P. J. O'Rourke

Adam Smith's huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.

P. J. O'Rourke

The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to b...

P. J. O'Rourke

If you ask the government to solve all of your problems, it's a bit like asking your wife to cook and clean, to raise the children, to hold down a second job to help with the family finances, to keep her parents happy and well and keep your parents h...

P. J. O'Rourke

Author Bio

  • NameP. J. O'Rourke
  • DescriptionAmerican journalist
  • BornNovember 14, 1947
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Author