Quotes from P. J. O'Rourke

The problem, when comparing contemporary television to television in 1974, is that TV has become not just bad but sad.

I think the Baby Boom has enjoyed itself, maybe sometimes a little too much, and we're continuing to enjoy ourselves, maybe a little too much.

Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives.

Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don't draft people; it's not jury duty.

Politicians will talk strategy and tactics and policies and programs until they're blue in the face, or you strangle them and they turn blue.

The 18,000 NASA employees are full of galactic talents and abilities and are ready to accomplish whatever they're directed to do.

The real purpose of welfare is to get rid of poor people entirely. Everybody knows welfare has bad effects; that's the point.

Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God's grace.

Libertarianism is a way of measuring how the government and other kinds of systems respect the individual. At the core of libertarianism is the idea that the individual is sacrosanct and that anything that's done contrary to the well-being of the individual needs some pretty serious justification.

Jimmy Carter was - he still - he remains to this day America's most ex of ex-presidents. You just can't believe that we elected this doofus. He was a bright enough guy and sort of well-meaning. But he was about as prepared to be president of the United States as your goofy old uncle, you know, the one that memorises baseball statistics.

Modern elites live in bubbles of liberal affluence like Ann Arbor, Brookline, the Upper West Side, Palo Alto, or Chevy Chase. These places used to have impoverished neighborhoods nearby, but the poor people got chased out by young singles living in group homes, hipsters, and urban homesteading gay couples.

War expands government powers. The trouble is that, when the war goes away, the government powers do not.

Affirmative action makes employers think, 'Black woman nuclear physicist? Hah! Probably let her into Harvard 'cause they were looking for a twofer. Bet she got C's in high school practical math. Give her a job in personnel.'

Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.

Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.

President Obama has contempt for real money.

The job of the president of the United States is to talk to the public, is to explain to them. Now, some presidents talk too much, like Bill Clinton. Some presidents try to talk but don't know how, like George Bush senior.

For decades in America, there has been an effort to ensure that the rights of those who are not sane are the same as the rights of those who are.

I was never a Democrat. I went from Republican to Maoist and then back again.

Democrats hate Democrats most of all.

Democrats hate success.

There's a love of rhetorical skill in the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden doesn't just go on tape cassettes and say, 'America sucks.' He recites poetry; he finds things that 'America sucks' rhymes with.

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.

The U.S. tax code was written by A students. Every April 15, we have to pay somebody who got an A in accounting to keep ourselves from being sent to jail.