P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Mercedes Benz : A mechanical device that increases sexual arousal in women.

There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.

Tabasco sauce is to bachelor cooking what forgiveness is to sin.

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

A firm, hearty handshake gives a good first impression, and you'll never be forgiven if you don't live up to it.

At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.

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.

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.

A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money.

Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something brussel sprouts never do.

Children from the age of five to ten should watch more television.

Television depicts adults as rotten SOB's given to fistfights, gunplay, and other mayhem. Kids who believe this about grownups aren't likely to argue about bedtime.

When Adam Smith was being incomprehensible, he didn't have the luxury of brief, snappy technical terms as a shorthand for incoherence.

It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.

Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.

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

With Epcot Center, the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn't think possible in today's world. They have created a land of make-believe that's worse than regular life.

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.

Walt is dead. And, after a couple of hours at Epcot, you'll wish you were, too.

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society.

If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

In general, life is better than it has ever been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word : Dentistry.

It's better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about "character issues."

Name me, if you can, a better feeling than the one you get when you've half a bottle of Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up your nose and a teenage lovely pulling off her tube top in the next seat over while you're doing a hundred miles an hour in a suburban side street.

Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.

Microeconomics is about money you don't have, and macroeconomics is about money the government is out of.

The Three Branches of Government: Money, Television, and Bullshit

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.

Never fight an inanimate object.

I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid.

What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

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

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.

There's no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn't invaded Kuwait that August and set everyone gearing up for World War II. Can we count on Saddam Hussein to come along every year and resolve our defense-policy debates? Given the history of the Middle East, it's possible.

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.

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism.

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

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

You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.

El Salvador has the scenery of northern California and the climate of southern California plus - and this was a relief - no Californians.

The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know.

I don't even know which end of a computer one is supposed to gaze into. I've never used a computer.

You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city - you don't need to go to Beirut for that - but a foreign correspondent begins to understand poverty from a different perspective.

Some people are better imagined in one's bed than found there in the morning.

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.

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.

One of these suburbs is actually named Stalingrad, which goes to show that the French have learned nothing about politics since they guillotined all the smart people in 1793.

I read good. I was an English major.