I like the fact that they still run substantive pieces. I'm not sure I like the pieces, but it's nice that they do that. Anyway, it was always sort of ridiculous, me having anything to do with the youth culture, but now that I'm in my 50s, it's extra-double-ridiculous. They were losing interest in me, and I was losing interest in them. When I went to renegotiate my contract at Rolling Stone, I kind of halfheartedly asked if I could do half the work for half the money, and they asked if I could do two-thirds of the work for half the money. I ran that by my agent, since he can do math.
P. J. O'RourkeThe Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.
P. J. O'RourkeI think Michael O'Donoghue felt he'd said what he wanted to say. In fact, nobody thought we could spin it out long enough to make a book.
P. J. O'RourkeVery little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen.
P. J. O'RourkeDon't send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals when their cheery effect is needed.
P. J. O'RourkeBachelors know all about parties. In fact, a good bachelor is a living, breathing party all by himself. At least that is what my girlfriend said when she found the gin bottles under the couch. I believe her exact words were, "You're a disgusting, drunken mess." And that's a good description of a party, if it's done right.
P. J. O'RourkeHow a peaceful, uncrowded place with ample wherewithal stays poor is hard to explain. How a conflict-ridden, grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing.
P. J. O'RourkeI was told to hand over my disposable lighter, to prevent, I suppose, any threat of "Do what I say or I'll light this Marlboro and you'll all die - in thirty years due to inhalation of secondhand smoke."
P. J. O'RourkeThe Arab peoples possess an ancient and highly developed civilization that is in many ways more sophisticated than our own. For instance, they invented algebra. And this is why we have to go to war with Saddam Hussein this minute and bomb the shish kebab out of him before he invents trig and chemistry and the whole of America flunks high school.
P. J. O'RourkeWhereas Rolling Stone, I just never had anything to do with them. I'd stop by the office maybe twice a year.
P. J. O'RourkeA fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something brussel sprouts never do.
P. J. O'RourkeI like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.
P. J. O'RourkeNo one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal
P. J. O'RourkeI always thought there was some romance to that '30s leftist stuff, even though I'm a Republican.
P. J. O'RourkeThat is the really great thing about being an adult male, once you get married and have children the whole decision-making process is taken out of your hands, and I for one am extremely grateful.
P. J. O'RourkeThe Vietnamese Hoa were merchants and manufacturers. They were very successful and thus, according to the logic of Marxism, responsible for society's failures. The Hoa suffered the same fate as the pizza parlour in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing except at the hands of the world's fourth largest army instead of a small, petulant movie director.
P. J. O'RourkeA cocktail party is what you call it when you invite everyone you know to come over to your house at six p.m., put cigarettes out on your rug, and leave at eight to go somewhere more interesting for dinner without inviting you.
P. J. O'RourkeMy wife and I both come from Irish families. There are two kinds of Irish families: the hitting kind and the kidding kind. If you're fortunate - and both of us are - you come from the kidding kind of Irish family.
P. J. O'RourkeLong conversations with pals when neither you nor they have had a drink can be a test of palship.
P. J. O'RourkeHumor is a terrific tool for explaining things, especially when what you're explaining is frightening or dull and complicated.
P. J. O'RourkeOn Michael Moore TV show, when he went to the home of the guy who invented the car alarm and set off all the car alarms on the block... pretty funny.
P. J. O'RourkeThere 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'RourkeIraq's invasion of Kuwait is a case of bad men doing wrong things for wicked reasons. This is the full-sized or standard purebred evil and is easily recognized even by moral neophytes. Other malignities-drugs in America, famine in Africa and everything in the Middle East-are more complex. When combating those evils people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot.
P. J. O'RourkeSouthern California is a nice place, if you could cut out the show-business cancer. It just keeps spreading.
P. J. O'RourkeAmerica is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way. We don't think much at all, thank God. Start thinking and pretty soon you get ideas, and then you get idealism, and the next thing you know you've got ideology, with millions dead in concentration camps and gulags.
P. J. O'RourkeWriting this book required an enormous amount of help from friends. To them goes the credit. I'll take the money.
P. J. O'RourkePolitics doesn't work. Look at the parts of America where government has had the most power, where government has spent the most money. Look at the housing projects we've got the poor people in.
P. J. O'RourkeIt's better to make fun of yourself because you've always got someone around to make fun of, and they can't sue you.
P. J. O'Rourke[Friedrich] Hayek is not protesting that things like child labor and stuff are good. He's just trying to show that when government undertakes to make everything good for everybody, this is what happens. And he addresses it to socialists of all parties.
P. J. O'RourkeA hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
P. J. O'RourkeDuring the mid-1980s dairy farmers decided there was too much cheap milk at the supermarket. So the government bought and slaughtered 1.6 million dairy cows. How come the government never does anything like this with lawyers?
P. J. O'RourkeIf I give up drinking, smoking, and fatty foods, I can add ten years to my life. Trouble is, I'll add it to the wrong end.
P. J. O'RourkeIn the wake of Animal House, the stock briefly and quite wrongly shot up. So I love that movie.
P. J. O'RourkeWhenever people tell you they are going to wipe the slate clean, it's your slate they mean to wipe.
P. J. O'RourkeEach American embassy comes with two permanent features - a giant anti-American demonstration and a giant line for American visas. Most demonstrators spend half their time burning Old Glory and the other half waiting for green cards.
P. J. O'RourkeI've decided that my motto in life is "Get off my lawn." It's the right answer to everything.
P. J. O'Rourke