Top 400 P.J. O'Rourke Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “At Epcot Center the Disney corporation has focused its attention on two things greatly in need of Disneyfication: the tedious future and the annoying whole wide world.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

152. “Anything that makes your mother cry is fun.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

153. “Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren’t present.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

154. “Who does Bill Clinton think got off the boat and stepped on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers?”

— P.J. O'Rourke

155. “The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

156. “Newsmen believe that news is a tacitly acknowledged fourth branch of the federal system. This is why most news about government sounds as if it were federally mandated – serious, bulky and blandly worthwhile, like a high-fiber diet set in type.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

157. “Of course, the humans in Haiti have hope. They hope to leave.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

158. “Actually, there is no way of making vomiting courteous. You have to do the next best thing, which is to vomit in such a way that the story you tell about it later will be amusing.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

159. “Poverty can’t be eliminated by punishing people who’ve escaped poverty.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

160. “Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

161. “Adam Smith’s huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

162. “Zen martini: A martini with no vermouth at all. And no gin, either.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

163. “In case we have to shoot Democrats. It happened during the Civil War, and it could happen again.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

164. “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.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

165. “Women are successful in the business world because the business world was created by men. Men are babies. And women areGood With Kids.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

166. “Gambling is so pervasive in Nevada that maybe the state should just go the whole hog. There’d be gum machines that dispensed chewing tobacco if you lost. You could gamble for the toilet paper in public bathroom stalls. And fill out Keno cards in an attempt to win cancer therapy at the hospital.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

167. “In Western Australia they don’t even know how to make that vital piece of sailboating equipment, the gin and tonic.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

168. “In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

169. “Never fight an inanimate object.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

170. “Coffee and cigarettes are much better if you want an instant breakfast.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

171. “Any person who has spent time outdoors actually doing something, such as hunting and fishing as opposed to standing there with a doobie in his mouth, knows nature is not intrinsically healthy.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

172. “The motorcycle is a device created by the team of God and Darwin to rid the world of useless young males.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

173. “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.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

175. “Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

176. “I am no stranger to loud music. I’ve been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

177. “Masochists are people that have pleasure confused with pain. In a world that has television confused with entertainment, doritoes confused with food, and Dan Quayle confused with a national political leader, masochists are clearly less mixed-up than the rest of us.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

178. “How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?”

— P.J. O'Rourke

179. “Passover is my idea of a perfect holiday. Dear God, when you’re handing out plagues of darkness, locusts, hail, boils, flies, lice, frogs, and cattle murrain, and turning the Nile to blood, and smiting firstborn, give me a pass, and tell me when it’s over.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

180. “Something is worth what somebody will pay for it. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

181. “Never serve oysters in a month that has no paycheck in it.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

182. “Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

183. “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

184. “Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

185. “A charity ball is like a dance except it’s tax deductible.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

186. “You can’t get something for nothing. Everybody remembers this except politicians.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

187. “The purpose of the Senate is to keep 100 middle aged knuckleheads out of the private sector where they can do real harm.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

188. “Every pleasure you forgoe on Earth is a pleasure you won’t get in heaven.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

189. “Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

190. “Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

191. “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.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

192. “After all, what is your host’s purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they’d have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

193. “Term limits aren’t enough. We need jail.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

194. “If a journalist shows a facility for praise he’s liable to be offered a job in public relations or advertising and the next thing you know he’s got a big office, a huge salary and is living in a fine home with a lovely wife and swell kids – another career blown to hell.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

197. “I wonder if it changes the nature of a society for beauty to be so common. Maybe in Vietnam “She has a wonderful personality” really means something. But I couldnt figure out a polite way to ask.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

198. “You can always reason with a German. You can always reason with a barnyard animal, too, for all the good it does.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

199. “Generally it’s not a good idea to wear Banana Republic – type khaki journalist clothes in a war zone. You might look too much like something that’s supposed to be shot, such as a journalist.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

200. “Everything on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren’t on a boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it’s how people who mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually finished college.”

— P.J. O'Rourke