P. J. O'Rourke: Trending quotes (page 6)

“Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, contains ten chapters of fulminations convincing the convinced. However, Moore does include one chapter on how to argue with a conservative. As if. Approached by someone like Michael Moore, a conservative would drop a quarter in Moore's Starbucks cup and hurriedly walk away.”

“A steady job is at least as deleterious to the spirit of bachelorhood as a steady date. Some jobs are worse than actual wives.”

“Asia is the continent rhythm forgot. At best Asian music is off-brand American pop, like Sonny Bono in a karaoke bar. At worst Asian music sounds as if a truck full of wind chimes collided with a stack of empty oil drums during a birdcall contest.”

“Of course, the humans in Haiti have hope. They hope to leave.”

“The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place.”

“Remember, FDA employees are serious about fear. We pay these people to panic about an iota of rodent hair in our chili, even when the recipe calls for it. FDA employees are first-class agonizers, world champions at losing sleep. When Meryl Streep got hysterical about Alar, they actually checked the apples instead of Meryl's head.”

“Iran and Iraq have been at war for five years now. The traditional present for a fifth anniversary is wood. Here's a gift suggestion: a big stick to beat some goddamned sense into their heads.”

“When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

“If Christ came back tomorrow, He'd have to change planes in Frankfurt. Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now spent in transit lounges.”

“Biotechnology is a worry. What if they take genetic material from wet noodles and blowfish and splice it into politician chromosomes and create a Clinton administration?”

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

“Everything on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren't on a boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it's how people who mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually finished college.”

“A pleasant natural environment is a good— a luxury good, philosophical good, a moral goody-good, a good time for all. Whatever, we want it. If we want something, we should pay for it, with our labor or our cash. We shouldn't beg it, steal it, sit around wishing for it, or euchre the government into taking it by force.”

“For some mysterious Darwinian reason, women feel compelled to straighten up bedrooms before and after sex. Try to make love in every other room of the house.”

“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.”

“If the politics of disease are to be understood, particularly in the dreadful countries where this understanding is most needed, then the politics of total collapse have to be understood first.”

“I can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners— two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime.”

“What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.”

“People with a mission to save the earth want the earth to seem worse than it is so their mission will look more important.”