Seriously. It was running out at Rolling Stone. First of all, they didn't feel the need for a dissident conservative voice in a world where certain conservative aspects had become intellectually dominant. I would actually argue against that, but on the surface of it, in the [Bill] Clinton years the market economy triumphed, certain libertarian ideas became ordinary, and certain early-20th-century ideas about centralization of government and economic planning and socialism with a small "s" had obviously gone out the window. The Cold War was over, blah blah blah.
P. J. O'RourkeLast year, on a long car trip, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh shout. I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh; therefore I usually don't listen to him. I listen to NPR: "World to end-poor and minorities hardest hit." I like to argue with the radio.
P. J. O'RourkeFinally, one night we were smoking pot [with Michael O'Donoghue] and talking about the people that are invariably in high school, whether you go to prep school or public school or ghetto school or rich suburban school. And actually, it spun off from a Kurt Vonnegut quote.
P. J. O'RourkeGambling 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'RourkeThe typical old-fashioned diet (in the nineteenth century) was so bad it almost assembled modern dieting.
P. J. O'RourkeIf I do, I say so. That's the only way out of that. If there are three words that need to be used more in American journalism, commentary, politics, personal life... it's the magic words "I don't know." I mean, there are certain basic principles, like the dignity of the individual and the individual's responsibility, and certain basic economic principles, like how when something costs less, more of it will be consumed... There are certain things that I feel pretty confident about.
P. J. O'Rourke