Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.
P. J. O'RourkeMasochists 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'RourkeI have three children and three dogs. You put them in a Prius, you know? People who have a Prius obviously have no life! No wife, no kids, no pets - there's no room in there for anything!
P. J. O'RourkeWell the planet I've got a chance to visit is Earth, and Earth's principal features are chaos and war. I think I'd be a fool to spend years here and never have a look.
P. J. O'RourkeAmerica wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.
P. J. O'RourkeMankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.
P. J. O'Rourke