PJ O'Rourke is a famous journalist and political humorist of Conservative leanings who had authored over sixteen books and written for numerous publications, most famously National Lampoon but also The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, The Daily Beast, the Cato Institute and The Weekly Standard.
For a while, and perhaps still, he's probably one of the most quoting political humorists or quoted people in general.
Lemme know if any of these quotes trigger memories, or tickle your funny bone.
"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer. (1992)
"The Three Branches of Government: Money, Television, and Bullshit." - Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. (1991)
"It remains to be seen which program will cause greater societal damage: China's one-child policy or America's one-parent policy."
"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money." - Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. (1991)
"You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer. (1992)
"The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer (1992)
"In general, life is better than it has ever been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word : Dentistry." - All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty (1994)
"I can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners - two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime." - Holidays in Hell (1989)
"No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer (1992)
“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.” - Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. (1991)
Most of his wisdom has come from the books he wrote with colorful titles like:
> Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
> Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer
> All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
> Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics
> Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism
And so on.
The beginning of his career was marked by two decades of being a foreign correspondent who covered foreign conflicts around the world which no doubt fueled his pessimistic optimism as a Libertarian as well as a skepticism for involvement in foreign wars and conflict.
His most famous book however is 1991's Parliament of Whores, which is basically a beautiful treatise on government and its many inherent inefficiencies and stupidities. His subsequent books also tackle things like economics, foreign affairs, and All the Trouble in the World discussing all of the global issues that will doom us all ranging from global warming to overpopulation. And all of his books have a strong humor and irreverent and satirical component, his writing directly pointing out the inherent hypocrisy or lack of logic in government policies and conventional wisdom.
His most famous speech is probably is 1993 address to the Cato Institute, known as 'The Liberty Manifesto' and in 900 words has more quotable lines and wit then most political/current affairs books do.
PJ O'Rourke was a great writer and a funny one too, who influenced a lot of us Analog aged Millenials with his wit and satire and commentary. He was a writer who could make learning about things like the political bureaucracy or economics fun and funny and could make you see the lighter, funnier side of things like man-made famine, ethnic cleansing and ecological devastation which is the best way to relate ideas to younger generations. He even decried authoritarian dictatorships by pointing out how they made lists of people they would eliminate, and then reinforced that point by writing up lists of people he would eliminate if he was a Dictator and had those lists published in his New York Times bestselling books.
In 2008 PJ O'Rourke (who looked like he could keel over at any time for the past thirty years) was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. He contrasted his situation with that of Senator Ted Kennedy, pointing out that Kennedy got cancer of the brain while he got cancer of the ass and pontificated on the significance of it. He survived the ass cancer and thirteen years later got his (sarcastic) wish of dying from a more dignified cancer.
“After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?” - PJ O'Rourke, "Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death." (2008)
For a while, and perhaps still, he's probably one of the most quoting political humorists or quoted people in general.
Lemme know if any of these quotes trigger memories, or tickle your funny bone.
"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer. (1992)
"The Three Branches of Government: Money, Television, and Bullshit." - Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. (1991)
"It remains to be seen which program will cause greater societal damage: China's one-child policy or America's one-parent policy."
"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money." - Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. (1991)
"You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer. (1992)
"The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer (1992)
"In general, life is better than it has ever been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word : Dentistry." - All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty (1994)
"I can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners - two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime." - Holidays in Hell (1989)
"No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal." - Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer (1992)
“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.” - Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. (1991)
Most of his wisdom has come from the books he wrote with colorful titles like:
> Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
> Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer
> All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty
> Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics
> Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism
And so on.
The beginning of his career was marked by two decades of being a foreign correspondent who covered foreign conflicts around the world which no doubt fueled his pessimistic optimism as a Libertarian as well as a skepticism for involvement in foreign wars and conflict.
His most famous book however is 1991's Parliament of Whores, which is basically a beautiful treatise on government and its many inherent inefficiencies and stupidities. His subsequent books also tackle things like economics, foreign affairs, and All the Trouble in the World discussing all of the global issues that will doom us all ranging from global warming to overpopulation. And all of his books have a strong humor and irreverent and satirical component, his writing directly pointing out the inherent hypocrisy or lack of logic in government policies and conventional wisdom.
His most famous speech is probably is 1993 address to the Cato Institute, known as 'The Liberty Manifesto' and in 900 words has more quotable lines and wit then most political/current affairs books do.
PJ O'Rourke was a great writer and a funny one too, who influenced a lot of us Analog aged Millenials with his wit and satire and commentary. He was a writer who could make learning about things like the political bureaucracy or economics fun and funny and could make you see the lighter, funnier side of things like man-made famine, ethnic cleansing and ecological devastation which is the best way to relate ideas to younger generations. He even decried authoritarian dictatorships by pointing out how they made lists of people they would eliminate, and then reinforced that point by writing up lists of people he would eliminate if he was a Dictator and had those lists published in his New York Times bestselling books.
In 2008 PJ O'Rourke (who looked like he could keel over at any time for the past thirty years) was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. He contrasted his situation with that of Senator Ted Kennedy, pointing out that Kennedy got cancer of the brain while he got cancer of the ass and pontificated on the significance of it. He survived the ass cancer and thirteen years later got his (sarcastic) wish of dying from a more dignified cancer.
“After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?” - PJ O'Rourke, "Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death." (2008)
I looked death in the face. All right, I didn’t. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I’m told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it -- as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound -- my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.
I still cursed God, as we all do when we get bad news and pain. Not even the most faith-impaired among us shouts: “Damn quantum mechanics!” “Damn organic chemistry!” “Damn chaos and coincidence!”
I believe in God. God created the world. Obviously pain had to be included in God’s plan. Otherwise we’d never learn that our actions have consequences. Our cave-person ancestors, finding fire warm, would conclude that curling up to sleep in the middle of the flames would be even warmer. Cave bears would dine on roast ancestor, and we’d never get any bad news and pain because we wouldn’t be here.
But God, Sir, in Your manner of teaching us about life’s consequential nature, isn’t death a bit ... um ... extreme, pedagogically speaking? I know the lesson that we’re studying is difficult. But dying is more homework than I was counting on. Also, it kind of messes up my vacation planning. Can we talk after class? Maybe if I did something for extra credit?
Why can’t death -- if we must have it -- be always glorious, as in “The Iliad”? Of course death continues to be so, sometimes, with heroes in Fallouja and Kandahar. But nowadays, death more often comes drooling on the toilet seat in the nursing home, or bleeding under the crushed roof of a teen-driven SUV, or breathless in a deluxe hotel suite filled with empty drug bottles and a minor public figure whose celebrity expiration date has passed.
I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.
Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy’s. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass ... well, I’ll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?
Which brings me to the nature of my prayers. They are, like most prayers from most people, abject self-pleadings. However, I can’t be the only person who feels like a jerk saying, “Please cure me, God. I’m underinsured. I have three little children. And I have three dogs, two of which will miss me. And my wife will cry and mourn and be inconsolable and have to get a job. P.S. Our mortgage is subprime.”
God knows this stuff. He’s God. He’s all-knowing. What am I telling him, really? “Gosh, you sure are a good God. Good -- you own it. Plus you’re infinitely wise, infinitely merciful, but ... look, everybody makes mistakes. A little cancer of the behind, it’s not a big mistake. Not something that’s going on your personal record. There’s no reason it can’t be, well ... reversed, is there?”
No doubt death is one of those mysterious ways in which God famously works. Except, on consideration, death isn’t mysterious. Do we really want everyone to be around forever? I’m thinking about my own family, specifically a certain stepfather I had as a kid. Sayonara, you s.o.b.
Napoleon was doubtless a great man in his time -- at least the French think so. But do we want even Napoleon extant in perpetuity? Do we want him always escaping from island exiles, raising fanatically loyal troops of soldiers, invading Russia and burning Moscow?
Well, at the moment, considering Putin et al, maybe we do want that. But, century after century, it would get old. And what with Genghis Khan coming from the other direction all the time and Alexander the Great clashing with a Persia that is developing nuclear weapons and Roman legions destabilizing already precarious Israeli-Palestinian relations -- things would be a mess.
Then there’s the matter of our debt to death for life as we know it. I believe in God. I also believe in evolution. If death weren’t around to “finalize” the Darwinian process, we’d all still be amoebas. We’d eat by surrounding pizzas with our belly flab and have sex by lying on railroad tracks waiting for a train to split us into significant others.
I consider evolution to be more than a scientific theory. I think it’s a call to God. God created a free universe. He could have created any kind of universe he wanted. But a universe without freedom would have been static and meaningless -- the taxpayer-funded-art-in-public-places universe.
Rather, God created a universe full of cosmic whatchmajiggers and subatomic whosits free to interact. And interact they did, becoming matter and organic matter and organic matter that replicated itself and life. And that life was completely free, as amoral as my cancer cells.
Life forms could exercise freedom to an idiotic extent, growing uncontrolled, thoughtless and greedy to the point that they killed the source of their own fool existence. But, with the help of death, matter began to learn right from wrong -- how to save itself and its ilk, how to nurture, how to love (or, anyway, how to build a Facebook page) and how to know God and his rules.
Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God’s grace. (Although this option is not usually open to reporters.)
I’m not promising that the pope will back me up about all of the above. But it’s the best I can do by my poor lights about the subject of mortality and free will.
Thus, the next time I glimpse death ... well, I’m not going over and introducing myself. I’m not giving the grim reaper fist daps. But I’ll remind myself to try, at least, to thank God for death. And then I’ll thank God, with all my heart, for whiskey. - PJ O'Rourke, "Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death."
I still cursed God, as we all do when we get bad news and pain. Not even the most faith-impaired among us shouts: “Damn quantum mechanics!” “Damn organic chemistry!” “Damn chaos and coincidence!”
I believe in God. God created the world. Obviously pain had to be included in God’s plan. Otherwise we’d never learn that our actions have consequences. Our cave-person ancestors, finding fire warm, would conclude that curling up to sleep in the middle of the flames would be even warmer. Cave bears would dine on roast ancestor, and we’d never get any bad news and pain because we wouldn’t be here.
But God, Sir, in Your manner of teaching us about life’s consequential nature, isn’t death a bit ... um ... extreme, pedagogically speaking? I know the lesson that we’re studying is difficult. But dying is more homework than I was counting on. Also, it kind of messes up my vacation planning. Can we talk after class? Maybe if I did something for extra credit?
Why can’t death -- if we must have it -- be always glorious, as in “The Iliad”? Of course death continues to be so, sometimes, with heroes in Fallouja and Kandahar. But nowadays, death more often comes drooling on the toilet seat in the nursing home, or bleeding under the crushed roof of a teen-driven SUV, or breathless in a deluxe hotel suite filled with empty drug bottles and a minor public figure whose celebrity expiration date has passed.
I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.
Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy’s. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass ... well, I’ll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?
Which brings me to the nature of my prayers. They are, like most prayers from most people, abject self-pleadings. However, I can’t be the only person who feels like a jerk saying, “Please cure me, God. I’m underinsured. I have three little children. And I have three dogs, two of which will miss me. And my wife will cry and mourn and be inconsolable and have to get a job. P.S. Our mortgage is subprime.”
God knows this stuff. He’s God. He’s all-knowing. What am I telling him, really? “Gosh, you sure are a good God. Good -- you own it. Plus you’re infinitely wise, infinitely merciful, but ... look, everybody makes mistakes. A little cancer of the behind, it’s not a big mistake. Not something that’s going on your personal record. There’s no reason it can’t be, well ... reversed, is there?”
No doubt death is one of those mysterious ways in which God famously works. Except, on consideration, death isn’t mysterious. Do we really want everyone to be around forever? I’m thinking about my own family, specifically a certain stepfather I had as a kid. Sayonara, you s.o.b.
Napoleon was doubtless a great man in his time -- at least the French think so. But do we want even Napoleon extant in perpetuity? Do we want him always escaping from island exiles, raising fanatically loyal troops of soldiers, invading Russia and burning Moscow?
Well, at the moment, considering Putin et al, maybe we do want that. But, century after century, it would get old. And what with Genghis Khan coming from the other direction all the time and Alexander the Great clashing with a Persia that is developing nuclear weapons and Roman legions destabilizing already precarious Israeli-Palestinian relations -- things would be a mess.
Then there’s the matter of our debt to death for life as we know it. I believe in God. I also believe in evolution. If death weren’t around to “finalize” the Darwinian process, we’d all still be amoebas. We’d eat by surrounding pizzas with our belly flab and have sex by lying on railroad tracks waiting for a train to split us into significant others.
I consider evolution to be more than a scientific theory. I think it’s a call to God. God created a free universe. He could have created any kind of universe he wanted. But a universe without freedom would have been static and meaningless -- the taxpayer-funded-art-in-public-places universe.
Rather, God created a universe full of cosmic whatchmajiggers and subatomic whosits free to interact. And interact they did, becoming matter and organic matter and organic matter that replicated itself and life. And that life was completely free, as amoral as my cancer cells.
Life forms could exercise freedom to an idiotic extent, growing uncontrolled, thoughtless and greedy to the point that they killed the source of their own fool existence. But, with the help of death, matter began to learn right from wrong -- how to save itself and its ilk, how to nurture, how to love (or, anyway, how to build a Facebook page) and how to know God and his rules.
Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God’s grace. (Although this option is not usually open to reporters.)
I’m not promising that the pope will back me up about all of the above. But it’s the best I can do by my poor lights about the subject of mortality and free will.
Thus, the next time I glimpse death ... well, I’m not going over and introducing myself. I’m not giving the grim reaper fist daps. But I’ll remind myself to try, at least, to thank God for death. And then I’ll thank God, with all my heart, for whiskey. - PJ O'Rourke, "Give Me Liberty and Give Me Death."
