You say we [reporters] are distracting from the business of government. Well, I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.
P. J. O’Rourke
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.
P. J. O’Rourke
Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy
P.J. O’Rourke
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.
P.J. O’Rourke
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
P.J. O’Rourke
In comparative terms, there’s no poverty in America by a long shot. Heritage Foundation political scientist Robert Rector has worked up figures showing that when the official U.S. measure of poverty was developed in 1963, a poor American family had an income twenty-nine times greater than the average per capita income in the rest of the world. An individual American could make more money than 93 percent of the other people on the planet and still be considered poor.
P.J. O’Rourke
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
P.J. O’Rourke
The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numbskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm.
P.J. O’Rourke
Politics should be limited in scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class.
P.J. O’Rourke
The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.
P.J. O’Rourke
Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.
Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
If you think nobody cares whether you’re alive or dead, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably well worth it.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Some days you are the dog, some days you are the tree.
Good judgment comes from bad experience … and most of that comes from bad judgment.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
There are two excellent theories for arguing with women. Neither one works.
Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.