A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

After all, what is your host's purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

America 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'Rourke Quote

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source 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 Quote

Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Children must be considered in a divorce considered valuable pawns in the nasty legal and financial contest that is about to ensue.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a "learning experience." Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a "learning experience." It makes me feel less stupid.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Never wear anything that panics the cat.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

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 Quote

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

There is one thing women can never take away from men. We die sooner.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

There's something about Marxism that brings out warts; the only kind of growth this economic system encourages.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote

You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.
- P. J. O'Rourke Quote