P. J. O'Rourke Ideas Quotations

America is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way. We don't think much at all, thank God. Start thinking and pretty soon you get ideas, and then you get idealism, and the next thing you know you've got ideology, with millions dead in concentration camps and gulags.

Generally it's not a good idea to wear Banana Republic - type khaki journalist clothes in a war zone. You might look too much like something that's supposed to be shot, such as a journalist.

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.

Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are, literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations.

The idea of capitalism is not just success but also the failure that allows success to happen.

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.

Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.

The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say.

Cockfighting has always been my idea of a great sport -- two armed entrées battling to see who'll be dinner.

Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.

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.

The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.

In the American political system, you're only allowed to have real ideas if it's absolutely guaranteed that you can't win an election

The key ingredient of politics is the idea that all of society's ills can be cured politically. It's like a cookbook where the recipe for everything is to fry it. The fruit cocktail is fried.