P. J. O'Rourke: Doing

“Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy?”

P. J. O'Rourke

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

“Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

P. J. O'Rourke

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

Mother's Day , For Parents , For Mother , Moms

“The collegiate idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Parliament of Whores

Source: Parliament of Whores (1991), p. 198

Learning , Science

“Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.”

P. J. O'Rourke

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

People , Idea , Thinking , Swine

“Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom," a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions—North and South, black and white, labor and management—but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Republican Party Reptile

Republican Party Reptile (1987)

Coffee , Drink , Baby , Weather

“Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal extremely smart person who went into politics anyway instead of doing something worthwhile for his country. So maybe he owes all of us an apology…”

P. J. O'Rourke book Parliament of Whores

Parliament of Whores (1991)

Personality , Country

“Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting Hillary in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money — hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”

P. J. O'Rourke

The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

Money , Health , Thinking , Waiting

“I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Holidays in Hell

Holidays in Hell (1989)

People , Truth , Lie , Books

“The difference between American parties is actually simple. Democrats are in favor of higher taxes to pay for greater spending, while Republicans are in favor of greater spending, for which the taxpayers will pay. In foreign policy, Republicans intend to pursue the war in Iraq but to do so with a minimal number of troops on the ground. This is not to be confused with the disastrous Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld policy of using a minimal number of troops on the ground to pursue the war in Iraq. Democrats intend to end the war, but they don't know when. Democrats are making the 'high school sex promise': I'll pull out in time, honest!”

P. J. O'Rourke

"Letter to Our European Friends" (4 February 2008)

War , School , Sex , Time

“Why can't everybody just get along? No reasonably detached person goes to Israel without being reduced in philosophical discourse to the level of Rodney King—or, for that matter, to the level of George Santayana. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Santayana said, in one of those moments of fatuousness that come to even the most detached of philosophers. It goes double for those who can't remember anything else. And they do get along, after their fashion. Muslims and Christians and Jews have lived together in the Holy Land for centuries—hating one another's guts, cutting one another's throats, and touching off wars of various magnitudes. The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in melodramatic plots.”

P. J. O'Rourke

"Zion's Vital Signs" in The Atlantic (November 2001) http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2001/11/o_rourke.htm

Hate , War , Fashion , Past

“Neither conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Republican Party Reptile

Republican Party Reptile (1987)

“Any person who has spent time outdoors actually doing something, such as hunting and fishing as opposed to standing there with a doobie in his mouth, knows nature is not intrinsically healthy.”

P. J. O'Rourke

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

Nature , Fish , Time , Personality

“Man developed in Africa. He has not continued to do so there.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Republican Party Reptile

Republican Party Reptile (1987)

“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

The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

“There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money — if a gun is held to his head.”

P. J. O'Rourke

How to Explain Conservatism to Your Squishy Liberal Friends: Individualism 'R' Us
Why I Am a Conservative (1996)

Money , People , Support

“No, it turns out Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction. And how crazy does that make Saddam? All he had to do was tell Hans Blix, 'Look anywhere you want. Look under the bed. Look beneath the couch. Look behind the toilet tank in the third presidential palace on the left, but keep your mitts off my copies of Maxim.' And Saddam could have gone on dictatoring away until Donald Rumsfeld gets elected head of the World Council of Churches. But no…”

P. J. O'Rourke

"Putting Words in the President's Mouth" (12 October 2004)

World

“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.”

P. J. O'Rourke

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

Money , People , Fashion , Bird

“We’re told cars are dangerous. It’s safer to drive through South Central Los Angeles than to walk there. We’re told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We’re told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it’s hard to reach the drive-through window at McDonald’s from a speeding train. And we’re told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?”

P. J. O'Rourke

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut (1996)

Angels , Cars , Horse , Speed

“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

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

Problem , Country

“I'd like to end the book a lot of ways. Except I don't have any answers. Use your common sense. Be nice. This is the best I can do. All the trouble in the world is human trouble. Well, that's not true. But when cancer cells run amok and burst out of the prostate and take over the liver and lymph glands and end up killing everything in the body including themselves, they certainly are acting like some humans we know.”

P. J. O'Rourke

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

Books , World , Way , Sense