Quotes from P. J. O'Rourke

Satire doesn't effect change.

Fortunately, I'm married to someone who's a pretty excellent parent!

When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he's saving a parking place.

Being a humorist is not a voluntary thing. You can tell this because in a situation where saying a funny thing will cause a lot of trouble, a humorist will still say the funny thing. No matter how inappropriate.

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.

New Hampshire polling data are unreliable because, when you call the Granite State's registered Republicans and independents in the middle of dinner and ask them who they're going to vote for, they have a mouth full of mashed potatoes and you can't understand what they say.

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.

When I'm in the car, I want the only one shouting to be me.

A person has got to balance work and life and family in order to be a balanced person.

When you pay a hospital bill, you're really paying two hospital bills - one bill for you because you have a job and/or insurance and can pay the hospital. and another bill, which is tacked onto your bill, to cover the medical expenses of someone who doesn't have a job and/or insurance and can't pay the hospital.

Every vote should carry a serial number, so that responsibility for harmful or careless use of the vote can be traced. Concealed voting should be outlawed.

Of course, no one wants to ban the vote. Voting should remain available for sporting and recreational purposes. But certain types of votes clearly should be curtailed - 'assault votes,' for example, in which the only purpose of the vote is to harm others.

Voting has proliferated in the United States, and it has reached a point where there is now almost one vote available per citizen over the age of eighteen.

The car provided Americans with an enviable standard of living. You could not get a steady job with high wages and health and retirement benefits working on the General Livestock Corporation assembly line putting udders on cows.

If you think health care is expensive now, just wait 'til it's free.

No Americans wants to see somebody lose their house because of health bills. Their boat? Maybe. Maybe the boat. But not the house.

Now, do I think the baby boomers tend to be self-absorbed? I do.

The budget doesn't have much control over the government. Then again, the government doesn't have much control over the budget.

It's better to make fun of yourself because you've always got someone around to make fun of, and they can't sue you.

I have no idea if some societies, anthropologically speaking, aren't really suited for democracy. I don't think that's true.

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 going to church on Sunday morning.

If there are three words that need to be used more in American journalism, commentary, politics, personal life... it's the magic words 'I don't know.'

Arab-led Islamic fundamentalism destabilizes nations from Algeria to the Philippines.

Finland is a rich country. What have they got? They got Nokia phones and plywood. How'd they get so rich? Because they're free.