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P.J. O'Rourke

Last updated:  23 December 1998


The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 49

The Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies is supposed to have subscribed to the "Village Voice" for six years in an attempt to find out about life in America's rural areas.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 54

I'm a registered Republican and consider socialism a violation of the American principle that you shouldn't stick your nose in other people's business except to make a buck.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 45

These were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 45

Smoking cigarettes seems to alarm peace activists much more than voting for Reagan does.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 60

Anything that makes your mother cry is fun.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 129

I mean, so what if some fifty-eight-year-old butt-head gets a load on and starts playing Death Race 2000 in the rush-hour traffic jam? What kind of chance is he taking? He's just waiting around to see what kind of cancer he gets anyway. But if young, talented you, with all of life's possibilities at your fingertips, you and the future Cheryl Tiegs there, so fresh, so beautiful - if the two of you stake your handsome heads on a single roll of the dice in life's game of stop-the-semi - now that's taking chances! Which is why old people rarely risk their lives. It's not because they're chicken - they just have too much dignity to play for small stakes.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 129

The real slums are another matter. The bad parts of Tondo are as bad as any place I've seen, ancient, filthy houses swarmed with the poor and stinking of sewage and trash. But there are worse parts - squatter areas where people live under cardboard, in shipping crates, behind tacked-up newspapers. Dad would march you straight to the basement with a hairbrush in his hand if he caught you keeping your hamster cage like this.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 80

Freddie Aguilar, who's billed as "the Bob Dylan of the Philippines". This is unfair, since he's good-looking, plays the guitar well, can carry a tune, and writes songs that make sense.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 87

To really enjoy drugs you've got to want to get out of where you are. But there are some wheres that are harder to get out of than others. This is the drug-taking problem for adults. Teenage weltschmerz is easy to escape. But what drug will get a grown-up out of, for instance, debt?
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 29

A child growing up in an excessively safe environment may never learn that he is one - not until he gets married and has a wife to tell him so.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and other outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 41

The forces of safety are afoot in the land. I, for one, believe it is a conspiracy - a conspiracy of Safety Nazis shouting "Sieg Health" and seeking to trammel freedom, liberty, and large noisy parties. The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health foods. The result can only be a disarmed, exhausted, and half-starved population ready to acquiesce to dictatorship of some kind.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and other outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 41-42

Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom", a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions - North and South, black and white, labor and management - but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and other outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 40

In fact, safety has no place anywhere. Everything that's fun in life is dangerous. Horse races, for instance, are very dangerous. But attempt to design a safe horse and the result is a cow (an appalling animal to watch at the trotters.) And everything that isn't fun is dangerous too. It is impossible to be alive and safe.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and other outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 41

Neither conservatives nor humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), xv

Every generation finds the drug it needs.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 25

Drugs are a one-man birthday party.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 25

Man developed in Africa. He has not continued to do so there.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 3

Industrialization came to England but has since left.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 4

Fishing ... is a sport invented by insects and you are the bait.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1987), Republican Party Reptile. The confessions, adventures, essays and (other) outrages of P.J. O'Rourke. London (Picador), 203

The America's Cup is like driving your Lamborghini to the Grand Prix track to watch the charter buses race.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 150

There are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get on one voluntarily.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 151

In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 152

Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 12

The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 16

War will exist as long as there's a food chain.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 13

Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 13

I'm sure they were looking for a person who embodied democratic spirit, intellectual excellence and the American ethos, which is why they picked Prince Charles.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 159

And Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 159

The world is built on discrimination of the most horrible kind. The problem with South Africans is they admit it.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 167

Sailing-boat racing can be interesting. So was Altamont.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 156

The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 154

Stars & Stripes captain and future White House guest Dennis Conner was there, also in a bad tux. He looked like a poster child for the Penguin Obesity Fund.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 154

The purpose of the spinnaker is, I believe, to give the sponsor some place where he can put the name of his company in really gigantic letters.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 155

I've always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 103

To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 90

One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 82

Cockfighting has always been my idea of a great sport - two armed entrées battling to see who'll be dinner.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 118

Everything on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren't on a boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it's how people who mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually finished college.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 149

I am no stranger to loud music. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 147

Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm worried about the difference between wrong and fun.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 125

Everyone's very busy, though not exactly working.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 26

The interesting thing about staring down a gun barrel is how small the hole is where the bullet comes out, yet what a big difference it would make in your social schedule.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 23

If Christ came back tomorrow, He'd have to change planes in Frankfurt. Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now spent in transit lounges.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 18

They don't like anyone who isn't Korean, and they don't like each other all that much, either. They're hardheaded, hard-drinking, tough little bastards, 'the Irish of Asia'.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 54

What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 78

Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 78

Even when they don't know what they're doing, they're doing so much of it that they're still going to get an A.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 58

Moscow has changed. I was here in 1982, during the Brezhnev twilight, and things are better now. For instance, they've got litter. In 1982 there was nothing to litter with.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 261

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.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 261

The most extraordinary change in Moscow was Arbat Street, the USSR's first pedestrian mall. Of course, there's something a little sad about a pedestrian mall in a nation where few people own cars - the whole damn country's a pedestrian mall.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 262

The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then gets elected and proves it.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 270-271

The entire Soviet service economy is conducted in geological time.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 264

The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 199

The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 194

There are probably more fact-finding tours of Nicaragua right now than there are facts - the country has shortages of practically everything.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 211

It had never occurred to us that the Kremlin's new anti-booze campaign would apply to journalists. Now, that's a human-rights violation.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 225

I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1989), Holidays in hell. London (Picador), 212

There's only one secret to bachelor cooking - not caring how it tastes.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 45

A steady job is at least as deleterious to the spirit of bachelorhood as a steady date. Some jobs are worse than actual wives.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 42

Never serve oysters during a month that has no paycheck in it.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 55

Despite the fact that meat is made from dead animals, it shouldn't smell that way. Try this test for meat freshness: close your eyes and see if you can tell the pork chops from a gym locker.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 54

For some mysterious Darwanian reason, women feel compelled to straighten up bedrooms before and after sex. Try to make love in every other room of the house.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 28

Keeping house is as unpleasant and filthy as coal mining, and the pay's a lot worse.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 5

Even newlyweds don't spend much time together, now that few marriages outlast the appliance warranties.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 5

You can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 21

Cleaning, like seduction, should be done from the top down - starting with the ceiling, which is ridiculous. Gravity takes care of that.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 15

Women make their beds each morning and they assume everyone - criminals on the lam, animals in their burrows - does the same.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 87

Lemon juice, an important ingredient in Bloody Marys and other forms of liquid breakfast. Makes fish taste as if it was grown on trees. And improves, immensely, the taste of lemons.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 60

The real truth about children is they don't speak the language very well. They're physically uncoordinated. And they are ignorant of our elaborate ideas about right and wrong.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 128-129

Bachelors 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.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 90

A good bachelor drinks his dessert (and sometimes the rest of his meals). A sweet tooth is a danger signal that you're getting too much exercise and not enough cocktails.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 59

The only really good vegetable is Tabasco sauce. Put Tabasco sauce in everything. Tabasco sauce is to bachelor cooking what forgiveness is to sin.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 57

You have to wonder about a food that everybody agrees is great except that sometimes it tastes like what it is.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 55

Coffee and cigarettes are much better if you want an instant breakfast.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 58

Remember, your body needs 6 to 8 glasses of fluid daily. Straight up or on the rocks.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1993), The bachelor home companion. A practical guide to keeping house like a pig. Sydney (Picador), 57

Traffic was like a bad dog. It wasn't important to look both ways when crossing the street; it was important to not show fear.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 336

Asia is the continent rhythm forgot. At best Asian music is off-brand American pop, like Sonny Bono in a karaoke bar. At worst Asian music sounds as if a truck full of wind chimes collided with a stack of empty oil drums during a birdcall contest.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 338

I'd like to end the book a lot of ways. Except I don't have any answers. Use your common sense. Be nice. This is the best I can do. All the trouble in the world is human trouble. Well, that's not true. But when cancer cells run amok and burst out of the prostate and take over the liver and lymph glands and end up killing everything in the body including themselves, they certainly are acting like some humans we know.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 339-340

Saigon is like all the other great modern cities of the world. It's the mess left from people getting rich.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 331

Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 104

Sloths move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation and less noise.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 111

From Virgil a line of direct descent runs for two thousand years to John Denver.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 120

One thing that's certain about going outdoors: When you come back inside, you'll be scratching.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 98

In a war against hunger, what do you do? Shoot the lunch?
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 79

It takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how long you last.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 86

Somalia is so bad that making a mess improves the place.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 91

Any person who has spent time outdoors actually doing something, such as hunting and fishing opposed to standing there with a doobie in his mouth, knows nature is not intrinsically healthy.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 128

Ecology is the science of everything. Nobody knows everything. Nobody even knows everything about any one thing. And most of us don't know much. Say it's ten-thirty on a Saturday night. Where are your teenage children? I didn't ask where they said they were going. Where are they really? What are they doing? Who are they with? Have you met the other kids' families? And what is tonight's pot smoking, wine-cooler drinking, and sex in the backseats of cars going to mean in a hundred years? Now extend these questions to the entire solar system.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 149

And biotechnology is a worry. What if they take genetic material from wet noodles and blowfish and splice it into politician chromosomes and create a Clinton administration?
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 155

Man has been breeding livestock for ten thousand years and has yet to come up with a monstrous sheep that can trample buildings and graze a whole golf course for breakfast.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 156

Remember, FDA employees are serious about fear. We pay these people to panic about an iota of rodent hair in our chili, even when the recipe calls for it. FDA employees are first-class agonizers, world champions at losing sleep. When Meryl Streep got hysterical about Alar, they actually checked the apples instead of Meryl's head.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 148

Mankind is supposed to have evolved in the treetops. But I have examined my sense of balance, the prehensility of my various appendages, and my attitude toward standing on anything higher than, say, political principles, and I have concluded that, personally, I evolved in the backseat of a car.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 134

The people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave him "a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself." In the first place, the most horrifying fact in many of our lives is that our ex-spouse has gotten ahold of our ATM card. And civilization has always been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 146

A careful reading of 50 Simple Things leaves you wondering whether you're going to die from environmental disaster or intellectual annoyance. Failing either, you can worry yourself to death.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 147

Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 9

Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 12-13

Human problems are complex. If something isn't complex it doesn't qualify as problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves about.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 14

Being gloomy is easier than being cheerful. Anybody can say "I've got cancer" and get a rise out of a crowd. But how many of us can do five minutes of good stand-up comedy?
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 9

And the typical old-fashioned diet was so bad it almost resembled modern dieting.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 2

Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 3-4

Are we disheartened by the breakup of the family? Nobody who ever met my family is.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 8

American children grow up to be valuable citizens. Bangladeshi children grow up to be part of the world population problem.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 14

Fretting about overpopulation, is a perfect guilt-free - indeed, sanctimonious - way for "progressives" to be racists.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 61

Imagine a weight-loss program at the end of which, instead of better health, good looks, and hot romantic prospects, you die. Somalia had become just this kind of spa.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 65

When a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 69

There is a fine line in the Third World between half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe and half a dozen customs officials waiting for you to offer them a bribe so they can throw you in jail.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 44

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 17

"Malthus,", says Vice President Al Gore in Earth in the Balance, "was right in predicting that the population would grow geometrically." Al, as the father of four children, should know.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 25

Crowded as the country is, is overcrowding even its main problem? Hong Kong and Singapore both have greater population densities (14.315 and 12.347 per square mile, respectively) than Bangladesh, and they're called success stories. The same goes for Monaco. In fact, the whole Riviera is packed in August, and neither Malthus nor Ehrlich have complained about the topless beaches of St. Tropez.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 29

Most of the research about species extinction has been conducted on islands because islands are controlled environments and scientists can get drinks with little umbrellas in them there. (...) Island logic also tells us that an increase in habitat size means an increase in number of species. But it doesn't necessarily. You can build your bed as large as you like and still get very few people to sleep with you.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 162

I guess the argument of contextuality is that anything is okay as long as it's done by people who are sufficiently unlike you.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 243

If the politics of disease are to be understood, particularly in the dreadful countries where this understanding is most needed, then the politics of total collapse have to be understood first.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 271

"Why would we have crime in Haiti?" said Dumarsais. "We have the police and the army to do that for us."
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 282

Idealism is based on big ideas. And, as anybody who has ever been asked "What's the big idea?" knows, most big ideas are bad ones.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 256

Violence is interesting. This is a great obstacle to world peace and also to more thoughtful television programming.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 249

War is a great asshole magnet.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 251

It's hard to come back from the Balkans and not sound like a Pete Seeger song.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 256

Haitians weren't screwed-up, but everything political, intellectual, and material around them is.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 285

In Japan people drive on the left. In China people drive on the right. In Vietnam it doesn't matter.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 319

Any random group of thirty Vietnames women will contain a dozen who make Julia Roberts look like Lyle Lovett.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 324

... two key rules of Third World travel:

1. Never run out of whiskey.
2. Never run out of whiskey.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 329

The morning meal was served in traditional socialist fashion - very slowly, with the courses out of order so that the jelly arrived half an hour after the toast and the coffee didn't come until we'd called for the check. However, it was hard to be angry at a place that had ice cream, beer, and cigarettes on its breakfast menu.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 318

In a society where commonweal does not exist, there are no duties, only exactations to be avoided, and no freedoms, only privileges to be grabbed. There can be no such thing as "public services" because nothing in the country is truly public. Everything is somebody's fief. And every fief must be exploited if the exploiter cares to survive.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 288

I suspect the Haitian Ministry of Health's principal contribution to health in Haiti is providing nice, healthy jobs to those Haitians with the connection to get them.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 297

Of course, the humans in Haiti have hope. They hope to leave.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 300

Bureaucrats want bigger bueraus. Special interests are interested in whatever's special to them. These two groups bring great pressure to bear upon politicians who have another agenda yet: to cater to the temporary whims and fads of the public and the press.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 197

Government subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle: You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to do something you wouldn't do on your own, it is almost always paying you to do something stupid.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 198

People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics, they have jobs.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 198

We tried to find the mayor. His secretary said he was at home. His wife said he was at the office. In Italy or France this would mean His Honor was having an affair. In Chabarovice it probably meant he'd run off to be a busboy in Stuttgart.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 174

Schneider has made a career of telling the public that the climate is going to change drastically any time now, and indeed every spring and fall he's been right.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 170

People with a mission to save the earth want the earth to seem worse than it is so their mission will look more important.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 171

Worshiping the earth is more fun than going to church. It's also closer. We can just step off the sidewalk. And sometimes we can get impressionable members of the opposite sex to perform sacramental rites with us. "Every drop of water wasted is a drop less of a wild and scenic river, Jennifer. We'd better double up in the shower."
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 172

When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 199

On Friday, June 12, 1992, 110 heads of state gathered at Riocentro. They were indistinguishable in dress and deportment. Where was biodiversity when we needed it?
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 221

Advocating the expansion of the powers of the state is treason to mankind, goddamnit!
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 227

The observers had a logbook recording the assaults, bombings, and artillery attacks on the area. Each page was ruled in vertical columns: DATE, TIME, LOCATION, DAMAGE, CASUALTIES. The columns headed ACTION TAKEN BY THE UN were completely empty.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 247

If Martin Luther were a modern ecologist, he would have to nail ninety-five T-shirts to the church door in Wittenberg.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 217

When a private entity does not produce the desired results, it is (certain body parts excepted) done away with. But a public entity gets bigger.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 199

If we're going to improve the environment, the first thing we should do is duck the government. The second thing we should do is quit being moral. Screw the rights of nature. Nature will have rights as soon as it get duties. The minute we see birds, trees, bugs, and squirrels picking up litter, giving money to charity, and keeping an eye on our kids at the park, we'll let them vote.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 201

A pleasant natural environment is a good - a luxury good, philosophical good, a moral goody-good, a good time for all. Whatever, we want it. If we want something, we should pay for it, with our labor or our cash. We shouldn't beg it, steal it, sit around wishing for it, or euchre the government into taking it by force.
O'Rourke, P.J. (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death. Sydney (Picador), 204


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