Quotes from P. J. O'Rourke

A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too.

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues, and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken.

A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do.

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.

One of the enduring problems with certain societies in the world - and this is certainly true of a lot of places in the Middle East - is that the capacity for self-governance and self-organizing just isn't there. It has to do with history.

Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

Good manners can replace morals. It may be years before anyone knows if what you are doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident.

Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.

All change is bad. But sometimes it has to be done.

Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.

Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a 'learning experience.' Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a 'learning experience.' It makes me feel less stupid.

Always read the stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

No humorist is under any obligation to provide answers and probably if you were to delve into the literary history of humour it's probably all about not providing answers because the humorist essentially says: this is the way things are.

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.

The inherent purpose of American government is let people seek their own goals and to encourage them to be responsible on the various adventures they have on their way to those goals, good, bad, and otherwise.

Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.

People are always angry at America. They're absolutely certain that America either caused their problems or is deliberately not fixing their problems. But the anger is always directed at America and never at Americans.

My wife and I both come from Irish families. There are two kinds of Irish families: the hitting kind and the kidding kind. If you're fortunate - and both of us are - you come from the kidding kind of Irish family.

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

Never fight an inanimate object.