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Especially With A Magazine Like Lampoon, Which Was Very Dependent On Newsstand Sales. Our Readers Didn't Usually Occupy The Same Address Long Enough To Get A Subscription, Because They Were In College, Or They Were Hippies. So It Was Very Up-and-down, And We Had To Calculate How Many To Print, Which Was Always Sort Of A Headache From A Business Point Of View.

-P. J. O'Rourke

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Especially With A Magazine

P. J. O'Rourke

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Especially With A Magazine Like Lampoon, Which Was Very Dependent On Newsstand Sales. Our Readers Didn't Usually Occupy The Same Address Long Enough To Get A Subscription, Because They Were In College, Or They Were Hippies. So It Was Very Up-and-down, And We Had To Calculate How Many To Print, Which Was Always Sort Of A Headache From A Business Point Of View.

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Although Computer-generated Artificial Intelligence Eludes Us, Artificial Stupidity Has Been Perfected.

Italy Is Not Technically Part Of The Third World, But No One Has Told The Italians.

In The Past A Man Was Expected To Give His Seat On A Bus To A Woman. Today It Would Be Much More Courteous For That Man To Give Her His Job.

As A Libertarian I Believe We Should Have A Federal Government Simple And Circumscribed Enough To Be Run By An Average, Dull, Normal American. With George W. Bush We Have Half The Equation In Place.

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.

I Don't Watch Much Television. Yeah, That's Pretty Funny. I Don't Know Where The Daily Show Stand Politically, Do You?

The Question Nowadays Is Not What Makes Government Work. The Question Is How Do We Make It Stop.

Government Work

Like Rick In Casablanca: "we'll Always Have Paris." When What We'll Always Have Is, Like, Brooklyn And Arguments About [lev] Trotsky.

Ever Read Any [friedrich] Hayek? He's Great. The Road To Serfdom Is Like... I'm Not A Big Political-science Reader, But I Actually Dog-eared My Copy. I Ended Up Going Back Through It And Writing A Précis, I Was So Impressed By This Book. It's All About What Happens When Government Tries To Make Everything Right.

The U.s. Tax Code Was Written By A Students. Every April 15 We Have To Pay Somebody Who Got An A In Accounting To Keep Ourselves From Being Sent To Jail.

Oh, God. The Sixties Are Coming Back. Well I've Got A 12-gauge Double-barreled Duck Gun Chambered For Three-inch Magnum Shells. And - Speaking Strictly For This Retired Hippie And Former Pinko Beatnik - If The Sixties Head My Way, They Won't Get Past The Porch Steps. They Will Be History. Which, For Chrissakes, Is What They're Supposed To Be.

Humor Is A Terrific Tool For Explaining Things, Especially When What You're Explaining Is Frightening Or Dull And Complicated.

Getting Down On All Fours And Imitating A Rhinoceros Stops Babies From Crying. (put An Empty Cigarette Pack On Your Nose For A Horn And Make Loud "snort" Noises.) I Don't Know Why Parents Don't Do This More Often. Usually It Makes The Kid Laugh. Sometimes It Sends Him Into Shock. Either Way It Quiets Him Down. If You're A Parent, Acting Like A Rhino Has Another Advantage. Keep It Up Until The Kid Is A Teenager And He Definitely Won't Have His Friends Hanging Around Your House All The Time.

People Shouldn't Be Treated Like Objects. They Aren't That Valuable.

All Change Is Bad. But Sometimes It Has To Be Done.

[wave Of Bestselling Conservative Commentators] It's Kind Of Like Reading The Power Of Positive Thinking, Or Any Other Advice Or How-to Book. All They Do Is Reassure People Of Their Basic Opinions, And Then They Can Continue To Act Like They've Always Acted. I'd Say It's Time To Move On To Something Else, But I Don't Know What It Would Be.

I Believe That Western Civilization, After Some Disgusting Glitches, Has Become Almost Civilized. I Believe It Is Our First Duty To Protect That Civilization. I Believe It Is Our Second Duty To Improve It. I Believe It Is Our Third Duty To Extend It If We Can.

Well The Planet I've Got A Chance To Visit Is Earth, And Earth's Principal Features Are Chaos And War. I Think I'd Be A Fool To Spend Years Here And Never Have A Look.

Adam Smith Pointed Out That There Were Three Things That Make Us More Prosperous, In A General Sort Of Way: Freedom To Pursue Our Own Self-interest; Specialization, Which He Called Division Of Labor; And Freedom Of Trade.

Division Of Labor

There Are A Lot Of Mysterious Things About Boats, Such As Why Anyone Would Get On One Voluntarily.

Mysterious Things

Anyone Who Thinks He Has A Better Idea Of What's Good For People Than People Do Is A Swine.

I Couldn't Have Gotten Into Harvard With A Crowbar.

The American Political System Is Like Fast Food - Mushy, Insipid, Made Out Of Disgusting Parts Of Things And Everybody Wants Some.

Never Steal Anything So Small That You'll Have To Go To An Unpleasant City Jail For It Instead Of A Minimum-security Federal Tennis Prison.

Some People Are Worried About The Difference Between Right And Wrong. I'm Worried About The Difference Between Wrong And Fun.

The Mystery Of Government Is Not How Washington Works But How To Make It Stop.

And, By The Way, How Come All The People Who Were So In Favor Of Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament Are So Opposed To Unilateral Protection Against Nukes?

Nuclear Disarmament

Greatest Generation Came Through Some Stuff That We Can't Even Imagine - The Depression, World War I - And All They Wanted After That Was A Breather And A Calm And A Quiet Life, And They Get Us.

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.

That Doesn't Mean That You Should Just Sit Back And Just Let Accidents Happen To You. No, You Have To Go Out And Cause Them Yourself. That Way You're In Control Of The Situation.

God Has No Role To Play In Politics Except To Make Sure Politicians Go Where They Belong. To Hell.

I Like Making Things. I Have A Wood Shop At Home. I Am A Terrible Carpenter But I Love Doing It.

Lampoon Was Exactly The Opposite. The Work Was A Lot Of Fun, But The Office Environment Was Hell. You Cannot Put 20 Humorists Together.

Walt Is Dead. And, After A Couple Of Hours At Epcot, You'll Wish You Were, Too.

Finally, One Night We Were Smoking Pot [with Michael O'donoghue] And Talking About The People That Are Invariably In High School, Whether You Go To Prep School Or Public School Or Ghetto School Or Rich Suburban School. And Actually, It Spun Off From A Kurt Vonnegut Quote.

Men Generally Pay For All Expenses On A Date ... Either Sex, However, May Bring A Little Gift, Its Value To Be Determined By The Bizarrness Of The Sexual Request To Be Made Later That Evening.

A Nation With A Goofy Foreign Policy Needs A Very Serious Policy Of Defense.

When I Left The Lampoon, I Went West To Try That Out, And Discovered That I Hated It.they Were Awful People Turning Out Awful Product .

I Arrived In The Middle Of A Press Conference - As Boring A Thing To Sit Through If You Don't Know The Language As It Is If You Do.

You Know, If Government Were A Product, Selling It Would Be Illegal. Government Is A Health Hazard. Governments Have Killed Many More People Than Cigarettes Or Unbuckled Seat Belts Ever Have.

The Idea Of Capitalism Is Not Just Success But Also The Failure That Allows Success To Happen.

People Are Always Angry At America. They're Absolutely Certain That America Either Caused Their Problems Or Is Deliberately Not Fixing Their Problems. But The Anger Is Always Directed At America And Never At Americans.

When I Get In Deep Water, I Prefer To Announce That I'm In Over My Head.

The Republican Convention, An Event With The Intellectual Content Of A Guns'n'roses Lyric Attended By Every Ofay Insurance Brokerin America Who Owns A Pair Of White Shoes.

Remember That All Tax Revenue Is The Result Of Holding A Gun To Somebody's Head. Not Paying Taxes Is Against The Law. If You Don't Pay Your Taxes, You'll Be Fined. If You Don't Pay The Fine, You'll Be Jailed. If You Try To Escape From Jail, You'll Be Shot. ... Therefore, Every Time The Government Spends Money On Anything, You Have To Ask Yourself, 'would I Kill My Kindly, Gray-haired Mother For This?'

Don't Send Funny Greeting Cards On Birthdays Or At Christmas. Save Them For Funerals When Their Cheery Effect Is Needed.

There's Not A Woman In The Book, The Plot Hinges On Unkindness To Animals, And The Black Characters Mostly Drown By Chapter 29.

Commies Love Concrete.

The Purpose Of A Funeral Service Is To Comfort The Living. It Is Important At A Funeral To Display Excessive Grief. This Will Show Others How Kind-hearted And Loving You Are And Their Improved Opinion Of You Will Be Very Comforting.

The Commies Are The Only People On Earth Who Think Star Wars Will Work. If They're That Gullible, Maybe We Should Have Held The Summit At Atlantic City And Let Them Lose All Their Missiles Playing Keno.

Normally, The Job Sucks But Work Is Kinda Fun, Because You See Your Friends And Flirt With Girls And Stuff.

In Case We Have To Shoot Democrats. It Happened During The Civil War, And It Could Happen Again.

Health Care Is Too Expensive, So The Clinton Administration Is Putting A High-powered Coporate Lawyer - Hillary - In Charge Of Making It Cheaper. (this Is What I Always Do When I Want To Spend Less Money - Hire A Lawyer From Yale.) If You Think Health Care Is Expensive Now, Wait Until You See What It Costs When It's Free.

I Was Never In The Office [of Rolling Stone]. It Was Very Different From Lampoon, Where We Spent A Lot Of Time Together Socially, Which Is To Say "drunk."

Even A Band Of Angels Can Turn Ugly And Start Looting If Enough Angels Are Unemployed And Hanging Around The Pearly Gates Convinced That All The Succubi Own All The Liquor Stores In Heaven.

There Is Only One Basic Human Right: The Right To Do As You Please, Without Causing Others Harm. With It Comes Our Only Basic Human Duty: The Duty To Accept The Consequences Of Our Actions.

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.

El Salvador Has The Scenery Of Northern California And The Climate Of Southern California Plus - And This Was A Relief - No Californians.

Little Islands Of Human Happiness, Peace, And Prosperity Are So Exceptional At This Point In History That I'm Not Even Sure We Can Draw Lessons From Them.

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.

The Difference Between Corporations And Governments Is Governments Have A Monopoly On Force. It's A Lot Easier To Vote With Your Feet Or Your Wallet Than It Is To Change A Government With Your Vote.

It Was To Be A Short Visit For The G-shevs. More Than Four Days In The U.s. And Raisa's Visa Card Bill Would Shatter The Fragile Soviet Economy.

The Dominant Type Of Humor In The '60s Was Essentially Defensive And Self-deprecating, Using Humor As A Shield.

Wealth Is, For Most People, The Only Honest And Likely Path To Liberty. With Money Comes Power Over The World. Men Are Freed From Drudgery, Women From Exploitation. Businesses Can Be Started, Homes Built, Communities Formed, Religions Practiced, Educations Pursued. But Liberals Aren't Very Interested In Such Real And Material Freedoms. They Have A More Innocent - Not To Say Toddlerlike - Idea Of Freedom. Liberals Want The Freedom To Put Anything Into Their Mouths, To Say Bad Words And To Expose Their Private Parts In Art Museums.

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.

I'll Be 56 This Year, I've Got Two Kids, And I Think It's Probably Time To Go Back To Writing One-glove Jokes.

In The Wake Of Animal House, The Stock Briefly And Quite Wrongly Shot Up. So I Love That Movie.

If We're Free To Do What We Want, Why Does Government Always Have A Plan For Us?

A Woman Should Dress To Attract Attention. To Attract The Most Attention, A Woman Should Be Either Nude, Or Wearing Something As Expensive As Getting Her Nude Is Going To Be.

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.

Positive Rights Are The Right To Shelter, The Right To Education, The Right To Health Care, The Right To A Living Wage. These Things Are - These Are, I Would Call Them, More Properly, Political Rights Rather Than Positive Rights. And They Are Extremely Tricky, Because Now We Are Dealing With Things That Are Zero Sum.

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.

Who, Other Than A Crazy Person, Does Anything Besides Hang Up On A Robo-call? Any Call, Any Person, Anywhere, Under Any Circumstances.

Because Of Their Cuisine, Germans Don't Consider Farting Rude. They'd Certainly Be Out Of Luck If They Did.

Each American Embassy Comes With Two Permanent Features - A Giant Anti-american Demonstration And A Giant Line For American Visas. Most Demonstrators Spend Half Their Time Burning Old Glory And The Other Half Waiting For Green Cards.

Journalists Are Notoriously Easy To Kid. All You Have To Do Is Speak To A Journalist In A Very Serious Tone Of Voice, And He Will Be Certain That You Are Either Telling The Truth Or A Big, Important Lie.

Southern California Is A Nice Place, If You Could Cut Out The Show-business Cancer. It Just Keeps Spreading.

Whatever The Occasion, Do Not Neglect Alcohol. No Other Refreshment Will Do. Yes, Alcohol Kills Brain Cells, But It's Very Selective. It Only Kills The Brain Cells That Contain Good Sense, Shame, Embarrassment, And Restraint.

Government Conspiracy? They Can't Even Deliver Our Mail And It's Got Our Address On It And Everything!

Government Isn't A Good Way To Solve Problems ... [g]overnment Is Concerned Mostly With Self-perpetuation And Is Subject To Fantastic Ideas About Its Own Capabilities. ... [g]overnment Is Wasteful Of The Nation's Resources, Immune To Common Sense And Subject To Pressure From Every Half-organized Bouquet Of Assholes. ... [g]overnment Is Distrustful Of And Disrespectful Toward Average Americans While Being Easily Gulled By Americans With Money, Influence Or Fame.

You Know, If Government Were A Product, Selling It Would Be Illegal. ... Government Contains Impure Ingredients - As Anybody Who's Looked At Congress Can Tell You. ... Government Practices Deceptive Advertising. And The Merest Glance At The Federal Budget Is Enough To Convict The Government Of Perjury, Extortion, And Fraud. ... In A Nutshell: Government Should Be Against The Law. Term Limits Aren't Enough. We Need Jail.

Maybe A Vague President And An Incompetent And Somewhat Corrupt Administration Is What The Nation Needs.

The Poor Of The World Cannot Be Made Rich By The Redistribution Of Wealth. Poverty Can't Be Eliminated By Punishing People Who've Escaped Poverty, Taking Their Money And Giving It As A Reward To People Who Have Failed To Escape.

Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race

If A Journalist Shows A Facility For Praise He's Liable To Be Offered A Job In Public Relations Or Advertising And The Next Thing You Know He's Got A Big Office, A Huge Salary And Is Living In A Fine Home With A Lovely Wife And Swell Kids - Another Career Blown To Hell.

Germans Respond Well To Lies. At Least, They Always Have Historically.

There Is A Remarkable Breakdown Of Taste And Intelligence At Christmastime. Mature, Responsible Grown Men Wear Neckties Made Of Holly Leaves And Drink Alcoholic Beverages With Raw Egg Yolks And Cottage Cheese In Them.

France In August When You Can Travel Through The Entire Country Without Encountering A Single Pesky Frenchman Or Being Bothered With Anything That's Open For Business.

There Is That Kind Of Happiness. There Is The Love And Marriage And Family Kind Of Happiness, Which Is Exceedingly Boring To Describe But Nonetheless Is Important To Have And Dreadful Not To Have.

Love And Marriage

Australia Is Not Very Exclusive. On The Visa Application They Still Ask If You've Been Convicted Of A Felony - Although They Are Willing To Give You A Visa Even If You Haven't Been.

I Had Really Not Been Out Of The United States Much, Except For Mexico. I Thought, "jesus Christ, This [russia] Is Like A Whole New World." Instead Of Writing Michael Jackson One-glove Jokes, All I Had To Do Was Go To These Weird Places And Keep My Eyes And Ears Open.

America Wasn't Founded So That We Could All Be Better. America Was Founded So We Could All Be Anything We Damned Well Pleased.

I Try To Only Ridicule People Who's Efforts Are Sincere. Very Little Trouble Has Been Caused In The World By Insincere Efforts. An Occasional Seduction Maybe. There Were Very Few Insincere Stalinists Or Nazis.

Good Manners Consist Of Doing Precisely What Everyone Thinks Should Be Done, Especially When No One Knows Quite What That Is.

Nobody Likes Insurance Companies, Especially Health Insurance Companies.

Insurance Companies

Whenever Government Proposes To Get Involved In The Regulation Of Trade, Just Be Very, Very Careful About Who's Behind This Proposal, What Their Motives Are.

A Dugout Is Much Superior To A Conventional Manufactured Canoe Because You Can Get Soaking Wet Without Bothering To Capsize It.

Children Must Be Considered In A Divorce Considered Valuable Pawns In The Nasty Legal And Financial Contest That Is About To Ensue.

If You Spend Seventy-two Hours In A Place You've Never Been, Talking To People Whose Language You Don't Speak About Social, Political, And Economic Complexities You Don't Understand, And You Come Back As The World's Biggest Know-it-all, You're A Reporter.

I Figured If I Could Put Together Being Funny About Stuff And Actual Events, Maybe I Could Do Something That Wasn't Being Done Much. Because The Reporters That I Met Out There Were Funny, And They Had Hilarious Stories That Just Didn't Fit In The Ap/upi/new York Times Foreign-correspondent Style. They Couldn't Use The Things They Had. But I Could.

Who Does Bill Clinton Think Got Off The Boat And Stepped On Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps Volunteers?

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.

I Think Michael O'donoghue Felt He'd Said What He Wanted To Say. In Fact, Nobody Thought We Could Spin It Out Long Enough To Make A Book.

Gay Marriage Acceptance Is Happening In The Blink Of An Eye.

People Will Tell You Anything But What They Do Is Always The Truth.

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.

The Young Are Adept At Learning, But Even More Adept At Avoiding It.

Politics Is The Business Of Getting Power And Privilege Without Possessing Merit

I've Never Been Able To Get It Straight About What These People Who Are Worried About The Trade Deficit Are Worried About. When They Say That We're Buying Too Much From Overseas, That We're Sending Too Many Dollars Overseas To Get All These Goods And Services They Got, They're Saying That The American Dollar Is Too Strong And That Is Hurting Our Economy. And The Result Of This Will Be That The American Dollar Will Get Too Weak, And That Will Hurt Our Economy.

Every Government Is A Parliament Of Whores. The Trouble Is, In A Democracy, The Whores Are Us.

Democracies Have

Never Wear Anything That Panics The Cat.

Government Usually Doesn't Work. It Doesn't Work Because It Is Political. People Who Are Wise, Good, Smart, Skillful, Or Hardworking Don't Need Politics, They Have Jobs. The Difference Between The Political Process And An Honest Life Is The Difference Between Parading Around Waving Picket Signs While Hollering Catcalls In Front Of The White House And Getting Up In The Morning To Go Make A Living.

Wherever There's Injustice, Oppression, And Suffering, America Will Show Up Six Months Late And Bomb The Country Next To Where It's Happening.

To Grasp The True Meaning Of Socialism, Imagine A World Where Everything Is Designed By The Post Office, Even The Sleaze.

Hubris Is One Of The Great Renewable Resources.

Renewable Resources

Tabasco Sauce Is To Bachelor Cooking What Forgiveness Is To Sin.

Cleanliness Becomes More Important When Godliness Is Unlikely.

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 Weltscbmerz Is Easy To Escape. But What Drug Will Get A Grown-up Out Of, For Instance, Debt?

What Use Is It To Endure The Dutch Rubs And Indian Rope Burns That Are Politics If You Can't Obtain Mastery Over People And Give Them Noogies Back?

Satire Doesn't Effect Change.

If The Dollar Weakens, Then Presumably All The Things That We Make In The United States - Buicks, For Instance - Can Be Sold Cheap All Over The World, And Everyone Will Be Buying Our Goods, And We'll Get All Sorts Of Yen-denominated, Or Yuan-denominated, Or Euro-denominated Securities, And Then Everybody Else Will Be Worried.

The Principal Feature Of American Liberalism Is Sanctimoniousness. By Loudly Denouncing All Bad Things — War And Hunger And Date Rape — Liberals Testify To Their Own Terrific Goodness. More Important, They Promote Themselves To Membership In A Self-selecting Elite Of Those Who Care Deeply About Such Things.... It's A Kind Of Natural Aristocracy, And The Wonderful Thing About This Aristocracy Is That You Don't Have To Be Brave, Smart, Strong Or Even Lucky To Join It, You Just Have To Be Liberal.

Farm Policy, Although It's Complex, Can Be Explained. What It Can't Be Is Believed. No Cheating Spouse, No Teen With A Wrecked Family Car, No Mayor Of Washington, D.c., Videotaped In Flagrante Delicto Has Ever Come Up With Anything As Farfetched As U.s. Farm Policy.

Politicians Are Always Interested In People. Not That This Is Always A Virtue. Fleas Are Interested In Dogs.

There Are Twenty-seven Specific Complaints Against The British Crown Set Forth In The Declaration Of Independence. To Modern Ears They Still Sound Reasonable. They Still Sound Reasonable, In Large Part, Because So Many Of Them Can Be Leveled Against The Federal Government Of The United States.

A Girl Who Is Really Pretty - Whether She Wraps Herself In An Abayah, A Nun's Habit, Or The Front Hall Rug - Never Wraps Herself So That The World Can't Tell.

Imagine If All Of Life Were Determined By Majority Rule. Every Meal Would Be A Pizza. Every Pair Of Pants, Even Those In A Brooks Brothers Suit, Would Be Stone-washed Denim. Celebrity Diet And Exercise Books Would Be The Only Thing On The Shelves At The Library. And - Since Women Are A Majority Of The Population - We'd All Be Married To Mel Gibson.

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.

Fretting About Overpopulation, Is A Perfect Guilt-free - Indeed, Sanctimonious - Way For "progressives" To Be Racists.

Actually, There Is No Way Of Making Vomiting Courteous. You Have To Do The Next Best Thing, Which Is To Vomit In Such A Way That The Story You Tell About It Later Will Be Amusing.

I Always Thought There Was Some Romance To That '30s Leftist Stuff, Even Though I'm A Republican.

The Harvard Lampoon Itself, Which Had A Pretty Stellar Run In The '60s.

The Preamble To The Constitution States: "we, The People Of The United States, In Order To Form A More Perfect Union, Establish Justice, Insure Domestic Tranquillity, Provide For The Common Defence, Promote The General Welfare..." It Doesn't Say "guarantee The General Welfare." And It Certainly Doesn't Say "give Welfare Benefits To All The People In The Country Who Aren't Doing So Well Even If The Reason They Aren't Doing So Well Is Because They're Sitting On Their Butts In Front Of The Tv".

There Aren't Many Political Humorists. Dave Barry Is Excellent, But He Doesn't Do It Much.

Most Of Us Had Never Seen A Sober Redneck Before, And We Have The Reagan Landslide To Testify That None Of Us Ever Wants To See One Again. It Was A Horrifying Apparition. And Ever Since Jimmy Carter, All Of Us Rednecks Have Had To Be Very Careful To Be Drunk Rednecks Lest We Turn Into Some Kind Of Awful Creature With Big Buck Teeth And A State Department Full Of Human-rights Yahoos.

The Founding Fathers, In Their Wisdom, Devised A Method By Which Our Republic Can Take One Hundred Of Its Most Prominent Numbskulls And Keep Them Out Of The Private Sector Where They Might Do Actual Harm.

One Of The Annoying Things About Believing In Free Will And Individual Responsibility Is The Difficulty Of Finding Somebody To Blame Your Problems On. And When You Do Find Somebody, It's Remarkable How Often His Picture Turns Up On Your Driver's License.

It Remains To Be Seen Which Program Will Cause Greater Societal Damage: China's One-child Policy Or America's One-parent Policy.

Watching Republicans In Washington Is Like Watching Lemmings, If Lemmings Jumped Into Cesspools Instead Of Off Cliffs. Splash! There Goes Mark Foley!

There's A Whiff Of The Lynch Mob Or The Lemming Migration About Any Overlarge Concentration Of Like-thinking Individuals, No Matter How Virtuous Their Cause.

It Is Easy To Understand Why The Cat Has Eclipsed The Dog As Modern America's Favorite Pet. People Like Pets To Possess The Same Qualities They Do. Cats Are Irresponsible And Recognize No Authority, Yet Are Completely Dependent On Others For Their Material Needs. Cats Cannot Be Made To Do Anything Useful. Cats Are Mean For The Fun Of It. In Fact, Cats Possess So Many Of The Same Qualities As People That It Is Often Hard To Tell The People And The Cats Apart.

I'm Certainly Not Fearful.

It Is Important To Remember When Reading Adam Smith Or Even When Just Thinking About Smith That The Era That He Lived In, We're Not Talking About Poverty In A Day When It Meant Not Enough Bedrooms For The Kids, An Old Car, A Black And White Television. We're Talking About A Whole World Where Poverty Meant Not Enough To Eat.

Black And White

So What If I Don't Agree With The Democrats? What's To Disagree With? They Believe Everything. And What They Don't Believe, The Republicans Do. Neither Of Them Stands For Anything They Believe In, Anyway.

The Greenpeace Booth At All The Rock And Roll Shows Nowadays Are Akin To The Old Sorcerers Who Used To Stand In The Middle Of Villages Warning Of Danger, 'when Night Wolf Swallows Mother Moon, There Will Be Great Famine.'

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.

During The Mid-1980s Dairy Farmers Decided There Was Too Much Cheap Milk At The Supermarket. So The Government Bought And Slaughtered 1.6 Million Dairy Cows. How Come The Government Never Does Anything Like This With Lawyers?

As I Get Older, All Sorts Of Things Become Less Funny. Once One Has Children, Any Cruelty Involving Children Becomes Far Less Amusing Than When One Was At The Mercy Of One's Friends' And Relatives' Children.

We're Told Cars Are Wasteful. Wasteful Of What? Oil Did A Lot Of Good Sitting In The Ground For Millions Of Years. We're Told Cars Should Be Replaced With Mass Transportation. But It's Hard To Reach The Drive-through Window At Mcdonald's From A Speeding Train. And We're Told Cars Cause Pollution. A Hundred Years Ago City Streets Were Ankle Deep In Horse Excrement. What Kind Of Pollution Do You Want? Would You Rather Die Of Cancer At Eighty Or Typhoid Fever At Nine?

There's No Such Thing As A Trade Deficit.

Smoking Crack Is A Way For People Who Couldn't Afford College To Study The Works Of Charles Darwin.

Think Of What Big Governments Have Gotten Up To In This Century : Not One, But Two World Wars, The Gulag, The Holocaust, Aerial Bombing Of Civilian Population Centers, The Berlin Wall, Nuclear Explosions, The Post Office. A Wicked Individual Might Want These, But He Wouldn't Have The Cash And Connections To Get Them. A Villainous Corporation Could Afford Them But Has To Market The Products. The Vietnam Draft Would Be A Tough Sell For Even The Most Fiendish Businessmen. "get Shot! Get Killed! Get Diseases From Foreign Women Who Despise You In Their Hearts!"

Gossip Is What You Say About The Objects Of Flattery When They Aren't Present.

War Will Exist As Long As There's A Food Chain.

When Are The World's Political Parties Going To Get Appropriate Symbols: Snake, Louse, Jackal, ... Trash Can, Clown Face, ... Dollar Bill With Bat Wings On It?

The Soviet Constitution Guarantees Everyone A Job. A Pretty Scary Idea, I'd Say.

Guns Are Always The Best Method For A Private Suicide. They Are More Stylish Looking Than Single-edged Razor Blades And Natural Gas Has Got So Expensive. Drugs Are Too Chancy. You Might Miscalculate The Dosage And Just Have A Good Time.

You Don't Despair About Something Like The Middle East, You Just Do The Best You Can.

The Weirder You're Going To Behave, The More Normal You Should Look.

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'.

The Australian Language Is Easier To Learn Than Boat Talk. It Has A Vocabulary Of About Six Words.

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.

Poverty Can't Be Eliminated By Punishing People Who've Escaped Poverty.

A Firm, Hearty Handshake Gives A Good First Impression, And You'll Never Be Forgiven If You Don't Live Up To It.

First Impression

With Epcot Center, The Disney Corporation Has Accomplished Something I Didn't Think Possible In Today's World. They Have Created A Land Of Make-believe That's Worse Than Regular Life.

From National Lampoon, You Go Directly To Saturday Night Live, Because It's A Lot Of The Same People.

Political Stuff Is All About His [hunter S. Thompson] Reaction To A Situation. And My Stuff Is Much More Externally Driven.

Something Is Worth What Somebody Will Pay For It. Nothing Else, Nothing More, Nothing Less.

Those Who Do Not Know History Are Probably Also Not Doing Well In English Or Math. P.j. O'rourke

I've Been A New Yorker For Ten Years, And The Only People Who Are Nice To Us Turn Out To Be Moonies.

One Thing Talk Can't Accomplish Is Communication. This Is Because Everybody's Talking Too Much To Pay Attention To What Anyone Is Saying

And Worrying Is Less Work Than Doing Something To Fix The Worry. This Is Especially True If We're Careful To Pick The Biggest Possible Problems To Worry About. Everybody Wants To Save The Earth; Nobody Want To Help Mom Do The Dishes.

Rich Parents Are Famous Both For Miserliness And Astonishing Longevity. And, When They Finally Do Die, You'll Find They've Left Their Estate In Inviolate Trust To The Golden Retrievers.

Golden Retrievers

When Buying And Selling Are Controlled By Legislation, The First Things To Be Bought And Sold Are Legislators.

Funny Inspirational

Where Self-interest Is Violently Suppressed, It Is Replaced By A Burdensome System Of Bureaucratic Control Which Dries Up The Wellsprings Of Initiative And Creativity.

I Don't Think I'll Ever Be A Real Boat Reporter. My Rolex Isn't Big Enough.

There Are Just Two Rules Of Governance In A Free Society: Mind Your Own Business. Keep Your Hands To Yourself.

Mind Your Own Business

Political Systems Are Run By Self-selecting Politicians. We Don't Draft People; It's Not Jury Duty.

One Of The Reporters Must Have Flunked Journalism School Because He Asked A Question That Went Straight To The Point.

I Didn't See Any Nra Officials Killing Babies In Waco.

We Like To Pile Language On Language. Hunter [ S. Thompson] Was An Influence On Me, No Doubt About It.

Zen Martini: A Martini With No Vermouth At All. And No Gin, Either.

Think About Last Time You Were Broke ... Now How Well Did It Go With Spending Your Way Out Of It? Did That Work?

It's Better To Spend Money Like There's No Tomorrow Than To Spend Tonight Like There's No Money.

Ireland And The Irish

Women Are Successful In The Business World Because The Business World Was Created By Men. Men Are Babies. And Women Aregood With Kids.

Everything That's Fun In Life Is Dangerous. And Everything That Isn't Fun Is Dangerous Too. It's Impossible To Be Alive And Safe.

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.

Feminism Is The Result Of A Few Ignorant And Literal-minded Women Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag About Which Is The Superior Sex. Once Women Made It Public That They Could Do Things Better Than Men, They Were, Of Course, Forced To Do Them.

Every Pleasure You Forgoe On Earth Is A Pleasure You Won't Get In Heaven.

I Do Have To Travel A Lot For Speaking Engagements.

I'm 61 Years Old. I'm Not That Fearful Of The Future, Period. I'm Not Going To See That Much Of It.

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.

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.

Visiting Future World Is Like Opening A Chinese Fortune Cookie To Read, "soon You'll Be Finished With Dinner."

There Is Only One Basic Human Right, The Right To Do As You Damn Well Please.

Basic Human Rights

We Had A Choice Between Democrats Who Couldn't Learn From The Past And Republicans Who Couldn't Stop Living In It.

Cars Would Be Safer On Rails!

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.

The Wonder Is That Communism Lasted So Long. But Then Again, Modern Poetry Lasted A Long Time, Too.

There Is One Thing Women Can Never Take Away From Men. We Die Sooner.

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