Quotes from P. J. O'Rourke

Everything that's fun in life is dangerous. Horse races, for instance, are very dangerous. But attempt to design a safe horse and the result is a cow ... It is impossible to be alive and safe.

I've decided that my motto in life is "Get off my lawn." It's the right answer to everything.

We should never hesitate to listen to a fool about life because life is pretty foolish as far as I can tell.

The beauty of democracy is that an average, random, unremarkable citizen can lead it.

Obama's space policy doesn't differ much from George W. Bush's.

Why can't death - if we must have it - be always glorious, as in 'The Iliad?'

Call a man 'ignorant,' and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.

Pete Seeger is a modest, unassuming, cheerful, and kind-natured man. He's a good folk singer, if you can stand folk singing. And he's such an excellent banjo player that you almost don't wish you had a pair of wire cutters.

In the language of politics, there is only one translation for the phrase 'hope and change,' to wit: 'big, fat government.'

Some people have facts; these can be proven. Some people have theories; these can be disproven. But people with opinions are mindless and have their minds made up about it.

Something that confirms all fears and many conspiracy theories about government is finding out what our elected representatives would put into law if they could.

In theory, taxes should be like shopping. What I buy is government services. What I pay are my taxes.

Adam Smith is misread as being amoral precisely because people don't read his first book, because they don't read 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments.'

I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh; therefore I usually don't listen to him.

Conservatives really don't believe in politics as the primary instrument of getting along in life and therefore don't tend to put their energy into it a way people left of center do.

In Henry Adams, I discovered not only the prototype of the modern thinker but also someone who is more interesting: a viper-toothed, puling, supercilious crank, thwarted in ambition, aging gracelessly, mad at the cosmos, and ashamed of his own jejune ideals. He is nevertheless very dear to me.

In thirteen years, every aspect of the universe can change - ask a thirteen-year-old.

Disney's Tomorrowland is deeply, thoroughly, almost furiously unimaginative.

Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year.

Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm worried about the difference between wrong and fun.

I have three children and three dogs. You put them in a Prius, you know? People who have a Prius obviously have no life! No wife, no kids, no pets - there's no room in there for anything!

Everything that's fun in life is dangerous. And everything that isn't fun is dangerous too. It's impossible to be alive and safe.

Greatest generation came through some stuff that we can't even imagine - the Depression, World War I - and all they wanted after that was a breather and a calm and a quiet life, and they get us.

What Enron was doing, what caused investors to embrace it in a rapture of baffled awe, was hiding debt.