Top 1016 Quotes & Sayings by P. J. O'Rourke - Page 14

With the war in Iraq, I had the cooperation of the Department of Defense. Kuwait was pretty eager to get American journalists in there, to show us what a wonderful place they are, and what great allies they are to America, even though they didn't actually fight in the war.

There was also a hunger strike in front of the National Press Club, which seemed an odd place to have a hunger strike (a cocktail fast, maybe). Although the Bangladeshis were savvy enough to know to know that if you're going to pester journalists, don't go to where they work: You'll never find them there.

Men generally pay for all expenses on a date ... either sex, however, may bring a little gift, its value to be determined by the bizarrness of the sexual request to be made later that evening.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a case of bad men doing wrong things for wicked reasons. This is the full-sized or standard purebred evil and is easily recognized even by moral neophytes. Other malignities-drugs in America, famine in Africa and everything in the Middle East-are more complex. When combating those evils people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot.

Never strike anyone so old, small or weak that verbal abuse would have sufficed.

Farm policy, although it's complex, can be explained. What it can't be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, D.C., videotaped in flagrante delicto has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.

The key ingredient of politics is the idea that all of society's ills can be cured politically. It's like a cookbook where the recipe for everything is to fry it. The fruit cocktail is fried.

Never steal anything so small that you'll have to go to an unpleasant city jail for it instead of a minimum-security federal tennis prison.

There's not a woman in the book, the plot hinges on unkindness to animals, and the black characters mostly drown by Chapter 29.

I don't think I'll ever be a real boat reporter. My Rolex isn't big enough.

In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailboating equipment, the gin and tonic.

The day was warm and clear. Kids were playing soccer in the parking lots and women were sunning their babies and having their tea all over the lawns. The scene was entirely too cheery for journalism.

One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes.

I'm a member of the working press; you'd think I'd know better than to listen to journalists.

Only one way to cover a story like this, and make that a double, bartender, please.

Christmas begins about the first of December with an office party and ends when you finally realize what you spent, around April fifteenth of the next year.

We are a nation that worships speed and power. And for good reason. Without power we would still be part of England and everybody would be out of work... Bicycles are too slow and impuissant for a nation like ours. They belong in Czechoslovakia.

I'm here as a radio journalist but am not even sure which part of a tape recorder takes the pictures.

There was an austerely dignified award ceremony. By that I mean we had to buy our own drinks - in clear violation of the international journalists'code of truth, fairness and an open bar.

This country is so urbanized we think low-fat milk comes from cows on Nutri/System weight-loss plans.

Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.

The very existence of the bicycle is an offense to reason and wisdom.

I'm a registered Republican and consider socialism a violation of the American principle that you shouldn't stick your nose in other people's business except to make a buck.

I suppose I should get a VCR, but the only thing I like about television is its ephemerality.

How a peaceful, uncrowded place with ample wherewithal stays poor is hard to explain. How a conflict-ridden, grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing.

There's a current notion that you should "take charge of your disease." No thanks. I'm busy. I've got cancer. I'm willing to face having cancer. I'm not willing to face having cancer with homework. I promised Dr. Pipas and Dr. Zaki that I wouldn't show up with sheaves of printouts from the Internet containing everything on Wikipedia on malignancies. They each laughed with detectable notes of relief. Although I suspect my wife has made her way into the health blog ether. Fish oil pills, raw kelp, and other untoward substances started showing up on dinner plates after I was diagnosed.

Australia is not very exclusive. On the visa application they still ask if you've been convicted of a felony - although they are willing to give you a visa even if you haven't been.

In the American political system, you're only allowed to have real ideas if it's absolutely guaranteed that you can't win an election

Russian cars are silly. They look like imports drawn by a cartoonist for a UAW newsletter.

France in August when you can travel through the entire country without encountering a single pesky Frenchman or being bothered with anything that's open for business.

Never serve oysters in a month that has no paycheck in it.

The only really firm rule of taste about cross dressing is that neither sex should ever wear anything they haven't yet figured out how to go to the bathroom in.

In Washington journalists can afford to live almost as well as people who work for a living.

A charity ball is like a dance except it's tax deductible.

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.

The commies are the only people on earth who think Star Wars will work. If they're that gullible, maybe we should have held the summit at Atlantic City and let them lose all their missiles playing Keno.

Generally it's not a good idea to wear Banana Republic - type khaki journalist clothes in a war zone. You might look too much like something that's supposed to be shot, such as a journalist.

Journalists aren't supposed to praise things. It's a violation of work rules almost as serious as buying drinks with our own money or absolving the CIA of something.

Actually, there is no way of making vomiting courteous. You have to do the next best thing, which is to vomit in such a way that the story you tell about it later will be amusing.

If a journalist shows a facility for praise he's liable to be offered a job in public relations or advertising and the next thing you know he's got a big office, a huge salary and is living in a fine home with a lovely wife and swell kids - another career blown to hell.

It was to be a short visit for the G-shevs. More than four days in the U.S. and Raisa's VISA card bill would shatter the fragile Soviet economy.

There are artists with palettes and easels selling the kind of modern art that Soviet art critics used to critique with bulldozers. Judging by the paintings I saw, the Soviets were right the first time.

Some people are better imagined in one's bed than found there in the morning.

Once we realized that there were these 25 invariable types - the class politician, the frigid popular girl, the kid who tags along behind the jocks - once we came up with these key characters in a cloud of marijuana, the whole thing just came together. One of the things I'm really proud of is how much of a high-school yearbook it is in its look, so much so that Hunter Publishing had the art director, David Kaestle, and I come for years to their annual convention and do a little talk on how not to do a yearbook.

People shouldn't be treated like objects. They aren't that valuable.

Microeconomics is about money you don't have, and macroeconomics is about money the government is out of.

Happy hour is slightly different in the Soviet Union. There are no ice cubes or orange-peel twists in the vodka. Also, it lasts all day.

Journalists are notoriously easy to kid. All you have to do is speak to a journalist in a very serious tone of voice, and he will be certain that you are either telling the truth or a big, important lie.

How much fame, money and power does a woman have to achieve on her own before you can punch her in the face?

Industrialization came to England but has since left.

That doesn't mean that you should just sit back and just let accidents happen to you. No, you have to go out and cause them yourself. That way you're in control of the situation.

Imagine having journalists in your own home and not even covering the furniture with plastic sheets first.

Those who do not know history are probably also not doing well in English or math. P.J. O'Rourke

I am no stranger to loud music. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids.

The only time a bachelor's bed is made is when it's in the factory.

The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.

Keeping house is as unpleasant and filthy as coal mining, and the pay's a lot worse.

A dugout is much superior to a conventional manufactured canoe because you can get soaking wet without bothering to capsize it.

Most of us had never seen a sober redneck before, and we have the Reagan Landslide to testify that none of us ever wants to see one again. It was a horrifying apparition. And ever since Jimmy Carter, all of us rednecks have had to be very careful to be drunk rednecks lest we turn into some kind of awful creature with big buck teeth and a State Department full of human-rights yahoos.

There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.