Top 400 P.J. O'Rourke Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

202. “You can’t shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

203. “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

204. “There was an austerely dignified award ceremony. By that I mean we had to buy our own drinks – in clear violation of the international journalists’code of truth, fairness and an open bar.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

205. “France in August when you can travel through the entire country without encountering a single pesky Frenchman or being bothered with anything that’s open for business.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

206. “The idea of capitalism is not just success but also the failure that allows success to happen.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

207. “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.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

208. “There are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get on one voluntarily.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

209. “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

210. “Ann Coulter to me is someone who says things that I say all the time, but I say them at three in the morning when I’m drunk as a monkey. She says them at three in the afternoon stone sober in bright daylight.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

211. “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

212. “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

213. “To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

214. “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

215. “The commies are the only people on earth who think Star Wars will work. If they’re that gullible, maybe we should have held the summit at Atlantic City and let them lose all their missiles playing Keno.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

216. “The real truth about children is they don’t speak the language very well. They’re physically uncoordinated. And they are ignorant of our elaborate ideas about right and wrong.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

217. “Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

218. “Maybe a vague president and an incompetent and somewhat corrupt administration is what the nation needs.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

219. “Gay marriage acceptance is happening in the blink of an eye.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

220. “Don’t send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals when their cheery effect is needed.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

221. “Government subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle: You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to do something you wouldn’t do on your own, it is almost always paying you to do something stupid.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

222. “Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

223. “Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

224. “Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

225. “As a libertarian I believe we should have a federal government simple and circumscribed enough to be run by an average, dull, normal American. With George W. Bush we have half the equation in place.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

226. “Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

227. “Little islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I’m not even sure we can draw lessons from them.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

228. “The very existence of the bicycle is an offense to reason and wisdom.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

229. “I’m a rather decisive type.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

230. “Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

231. “If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat – in other words, turn you into an adult.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

232. “The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

233. “Nobody likes insurance companies, especially health insurance companies.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

234. “I’m really tired of virtue.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

236. “I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

237. “We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

238. “Popular culture has become engorged, broadening and thickening until it’s the only culture anyone notices.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

239. “Human problems are complex. If something isn’t complex it doesn’t qualify as problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves about.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

240. “What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

241. “Journalists are notoriously easy to kid. All you have to do is speak to a journalist in a very serious tone of voice, and he will be certain that you are either telling the truth or a big, important lie.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

242. “Every generation finds the drug it needs.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

243. “You can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

244. “There are no kinder or better people in the world than those who listen to you when you are 18.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

245. “Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

246. “Abstract anger is great for rhetorical carrying on. You can go on endlessly about the post office, but it doesn’t mean you’re mad at your mailman.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

247. “If we’re free to do what we want, why does government always have a plan for us?”

— P.J. O'Rourke

248. “A nation with a goofy foreign policy needs a very serious policy of defense.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

249. “We had a choice between Democrats who couldn’t learn from the past and Republicans who couldn’t stop living in it...”

— P.J. O'Rourke

250. “I suppose I should get a VCR, but the only thing I like about television is its ephemerality.”

— P.J. O'Rourke