The idea of capitalism is not just success but also the failure that allows success to happen. P. J. O'Rourke More Quotes by P. J. O'Rourke More Quotes From P. J. O'Rourke The 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'Rourke humorouswarfunny The purpose of the Senate is to keep 100 middle aged knuckleheads out of the private sector where they can do real harm. P. J. O'Rourke knuckleheadspoliticalreal What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road. P. J. O'Rourke hazardswould-beworld We're told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine? P. J. O'Rourke cancerhorseyears Bob Wallace was my editor at Rolling Stone when I first started writing there, and he's a wonderful editor. I was in the Philippines during the Marcos overthrow, and I was up on what was called Smokey Mountain. I think it's gone now, but it was a garbage dump with a bunch of people living on it. I was talking to Bob on the phone, and I told him, "I'm a humorist. I can't write about this." And Bob told me to let my style be dictated by the subject, to take what I saw and write about it in the tone that it requires. P. J. O'Rourke phoneswritingthinking In 1970 or '71, early in the magazine, Michael O'Donoghue did maybe eight pages of a 1958 yearbook, from Ezra Taft Benson High School. But by the time the [book-length] high-school yearbook came around, he didn't want to be involved. P. J. O'Rourke eightbookschool Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers. P. J. O'Rourke wittyinspirationalfunny One thing talk can't accomplish is communication. This is because everybody's talking too much to pay attention to what anyone is saying P. J. O'Rourke communicationattentiontalking Anyhow, all mankind's ideas and interests, all human aims and motives, are exhibited, fully formed, in a three-year-old child. The kid is just operating on a smaller scale and lacks the advantage of having made enormous soft-money campaign contributions to political candidates. P. J. O'Rourke humorouskidschildren The sky was so clear that the starlight cast shadows, and so many sparkles and glitters and glints appeared above us that it looked like something really expensive had been dropped and shattered in heaven - God's Steuben ashtray, maybe. P. J. O'Rourke humorousgodfunny Whenever government proposes to get involved in the regulation of trade, just be very, very careful about who's behind this proposal, what their motives are. P. J. O'Rourke proposalregulationgovernment [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'Rourke partygovernmentchildren Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don't. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw? P. J. O'Rourke writingteacherthinking 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 republicmightfather Cars would be safer on rails! P. J. O'Rourke railcarwould-be I read good. I was an English major. P. J. O'Rourke english-majormajors Positive rights are the right to shelter, the right to education, the right to health care, the right to a living wage. These things are - these are, I would call them, more properly, political rights rather than positive rights. And they are extremely tricky, because now we are dealing with things that are zero sum. P. J. O'Rourke healthzeropositive I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wire... not killing yourself, basically. And in that manual, I found out - and it cost me a thousand dollars - that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don't, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. How am I supposed to know that? "It's in the manual." P. J. O'Rourke nutstwoyears 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. P. J. O'Rourke alcoholdrinkingmind The America's Cup is like driving your Lamborgini to the Gran Prix track to watch the charter buses race. P. J. O'Rourke racefunnyamerica
