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. “The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

204. “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

205. “The weirder you’re going to behave, the more normal you should look.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

206. “East Germany was so total in its totalitarianism that everything was banned which wasn’t compulsory.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

207. “Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Gluttony, or, as we call them these days, “getting in touch with your sexuality,” “raising your self-esteem,” “relaxation therapy,” and “being a recovered bulimic.””

— P.J. O'Rourke

208. “Detroits industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

209. “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

210. “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

211. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

214. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

216. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

219. “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

220. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

222. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

225. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

227. “I’m a rather decisive type.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

228. “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

229. “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

230. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

232. “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

233. “That doesn’t mean that you should just sit back and just let accidents happen to you. No, you have to go out and cause them yourself. That way you’re in control of the situation.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

235. “I’m really tired of virtue.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

238. “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

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. “In Japan people drive on the left. In China people drive on the right. In Vietnam it doesn’t matter.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

242. “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

243. “To really enjoy drugs you’ve got to want to get out of where you are. But there are some wheres that are harder to get out of than others. This is the drug-taking problem for adults. Teenage Weltscbmerz is easy to escape. But what drug will get a grown-up out of, for instance, debt?”

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

248. “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

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

— P.J. O'Rourke

250. “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