Soldiers are not policemen, and it’s very unfair, even for those soldiers who have some police training, to burden them with police duties. It’s not what they’re trained for, or equipped for. – P. J. O’Rourke
A person has got to balance work and life and family in order to be a balanced person. – P. J. O’Rourke
Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse. – P. J. O’Rourke
Rich people don’t like to be in the military. The shoes are ugly and the uniforms itch. Rich people don’t go in much for revolution or terrorism, either. – P. J. O’Rourke
Neither liberal nor conservative politicians can resist the temptation to stand as mighty sequoias of rectitude amid the lowly underbrush of fundraising. – P. J. O’Rourke
Jeans fit the mature male one of two ways, both dirigible in nature. You make a public impression that’s either Hindenburg or Goodyear blimp. – P. J. O’Rourke
No doubt the ridiculous politicians are right to like politics. They have found careers in which success can be achieved by being ridiculous. Imagine Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush rising to the top of any other profession. – P. J. O’Rourke
Sometimes the right response to evil is an appeal to powerful and effective social organization – an appeal to civilization itself. – P. J. O’Rourke
If death weren’t around to ‘finalize’ the Darwinian process, we’d all still be amoebas. – P. J. O’Rourke
To mistrust science and deny the validity of scientific method is to resign your job as a human. You’d better go look for work as a plant or wild animal. – P. J. O’Rourke
One of the enduring problems with certain societies in the world – and this is certainly true of a lot of places in the Middle East – is that the capacity for self-governance and self-organizing just isn’t there. It has to do with history. – P. J. O’Rourke
Politicians are wonderful people as long as they stay away from things they don’t understand, such as working for a living. – P. J. O’Rourke
When I board an airplane these days, all the middle-aged men are dressed like me – when I was an 8-year-old. They’re in shorts and T-shirts. And it’s not just on airplanes. It’s in business offices, teachers’ lounges, and churches. – P. J. O’Rourke
There are plenty of problems in the world, and doubtless climate change – or whatever the currently voguish phrase for it all is – certainly is one of them. But it’s low on my list. – P. J. O’Rourke
The great apologist has to have lived large and wild. If he’s going to kiss the world’s boo-boos and make up, he’d better plant some bruises first. A master apologizer has to be a Lord Byron, a Rick in Casablanca, a Lee Atwater, anyway. – P. J. O’Rourke
Watching Republicans in Washington is like watching lemmings, if lemmings jumped into cesspools instead of off cliffs. – P. J. O’Rourke
Our regulatory bodies strive to create honest dealings, fair trades, and a situation in which no one has an advantage over anyone else. But human beings aren’t honest. And all trades are made because one person thinks he’s getting the better of the other, and the other person thinks the same. – P. J. O’Rourke
Affirmative action makes employers think, ‘Black woman nuclear physicist? Hah! Probably let her into Harvard ’cause they were looking for a twofer. Bet she got C’s in high school practical math. Give her a job in personnel.’ – P. J. O’Rourke
When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he’s saving a parking place. – P. J. O’Rourke