P.J. O'Rourke Quotes (Author of Holidays in Hell) (2024)

“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
― P. J. O'Rourke

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“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

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“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World

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“You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going.”
― P. J. O'Rourke

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“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. 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

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“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.”
― P. J. O'Rourke

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“We had a choice between Democrats who couldn't learn from the past and Republicans who couldn't stop living in it...”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“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

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“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People

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“The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“Drugs have taught an entire generation of kids the metric system”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

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“The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there is nothing in the mall and if you don't go there they shoot you.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“The average IQ in America is—and this can be proven mathematically—average.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“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

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“Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whor*s. The trouble is, in a democracy the whor*s are us.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of whor*s: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government

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“Never wear anything that panics the cat.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“People are all exactly alike. There's no such thing as a race and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we'd be the same breed. George Bush and an Australian Aborigine have fewer differences than a Lhasa apso and a toy fox terrier. A Japanese raised in Riyadh would be an Arab. A Zulu raised in New Rochelle would be an orthodontist. People are all the same, though their circ*mstances differ terribly.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“I was having dinner…in London…when eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about “Your country’s never been invaded.” And so I said, “Let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD. We’re the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort co*ke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go. You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right, little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio.' Hell can’t hold our sock-hops.
We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, f*ck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and sh*t them out before lunch.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny about This?"

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“It's better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“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's willing to try 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'll do good with his own money—if a gun is held to his head.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

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“When are the world's political parties going to get appropriate symbols: snake, louse, jackal, ... trash can, clown face, ... dollar bill with bat wings on it?”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World

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