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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.

-P. J. O'Rourke

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Oh, God. The Sixties

P. J. O'Rourke

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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.

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Smoking Cigarettes Seems To Alarm Peace Activists Much More Than Voting For Reagan Does.

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

No Humorist Is Under Any Obligation To Provide Answers And Probably If You Were To Delve Into The Literary History Of Humour It's Probably All About Not Providing Answers Because The Humorist Essentially Says: This Is The Way Things Are.

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

Satire Doesn't Effect Change.

Everybody Knows How To Raise Children, Except The People Who Have Them.

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

As Long As We Are On Firm Moral Ground, As Long As We're Caring About Other People, These Are Legitimate Worries. The Minute That We Start Protecting Our Own Interests In The Name Of These Worries And Saying, "oh, We Have To Make Sure That Only Ford Motor Company Manufactures Cars, Because We Can't Be Sure That The Cars In Other Countries Are Being Made Quite Up To Our Point Of View," We're Economically Off Base, And, Of Course, We're Moral Hypocrites, Too.

Neither Conservatives Nor Humorists Believe Man Is Good. But Left-wingers Do.

Our Democracy, Our Culture, Our Whole Way Of Life Is A Spectacular Triumph Of The Blah. Why Not Have A Political Convention Without Politics To Nominate A Leader Who's Out In Front Of Nobody? Maybe Our National Mindlessness Is The Very Thing That Keeps Us From Turning Into One Of Those Smelly European Countries Full Of Pseudo-reds And Crypto-fascists And Greens Who Dress Like Forest Elves.

Many Reporters, When They Go To Work In The Nation's Capital, Begin Thinking Of Themselves As Participants In The Political Process Instead Of Glorified Stenographers.

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.

Taxi Drivers All Over The World, By The Way, Are Under Newspaper Guild Contract To Give Easy Quotes To Foreign Correspondents.

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

The Average Iq In America Is—and This Can Be Proven Mathematically—average.

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.

Long Conversations With Pals When Neither You Nor They Have Had A Drink Can Be A Test Of Palship.

Russian Cars Are Silly. They Look Like Imports Drawn By A Cartoonist For A Uaw Newsletter.

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

Now For Good Or Ill, California Is The Place Where Trends Tend To Be Set In Western Civilization - If Civilization Indeed It Is. California, For Several Generations Now, Has Been The Newest, Biggest, Most Experimental Place In The Newest, Biggest, Most Experimental Part Of Liberal Western Capitalism - Which Is Itself A New Experiment For Mankind.

Just As Some Things Are Too Strange For Fiction, Others Are Too True For Journalism.

Abstract Anger Is Great For Rhetorical Carrying On. You Can Go On Endlessly About The Post Office, But It Doesn't Mean You're Mad At Your Mailman.

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.

It Doesn't Matter How Many Televisions And Computers And Pieces Of Stereo Equipment The Chinese Send To Us, Even If They're Sending Them To Us Only In Return For Some Funny, Little, Green Pieces Of Paper. That Is A Balanced Trade. They Got What They Wanted: The Green Pieces Of Paper. We Got What We Wanted: The Plush Toys, The Computers, The Stereo Components.

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.

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

If You Get Outside The World Of Show Business And Its Satellites, There's A Whole World Of Car Nuts In The Los Angeles Area.

Harvard Has Been Almost As Important To The American Jewish Community As The Pork-sausage Industry.

I Buy A Tractor Two Years Ago, And Four-fifths Of The Tractor Manual Is About Not Tipping Over, Not Raising The Bucket High Enough To Hit High-tension Wire... Not Killing Yourself, Basically. And In That Manual, I Found Out - And It Cost Me A Thousand Dollars - That When The Tractor Is New, 10 Hours Into Use Of The Tractor, You Have To Re-torque The Lug Nuts. If You Don't, You Will Oval The Holes. This Is Buried Between The Moron Warnings. I Never Found It. I Take The Tractor In For Its Regular Servicing, And They Say My Wheels Are Gone. How Am I Supposed To Know That? "it's In The Manual."

Marijuana Is Self-punishing. It Makes You Acutely Sensitive, And In This World, What Worse Punishment Could There Be?

Journalists Aren't Supposed To Praise Things. It's A Violation Of Work Rules Almost As Serious As Buying Drinks With Our Own Money Or Absolving The Cia Of Something.

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.

The Day Was Warm And Clear. Kids Were Playing Soccer In The Parking Lots And Women Were Sunning Their Babies And Having Their Tea All Over The Lawns. The Scene Was Entirely Too Cheery For Journalism.

Once We Realized That There Were These 25 Invariable Types - The Class Politician, The Frigid Popular Girl, The Kid Who Tags Along Behind The Jocks - Once We Came Up With These Key Characters In A Cloud Of Marijuana, The Whole Thing Just Came Together. One Of The Things I'm Really Proud Of Is How Much Of A High-school Yearbook It Is In Its Look, So Much So That Hunter Publishing Had The Art Director, David Kaestle, And I Come For Years To Their Annual Convention And Do A Little Talk On How Not To Do A Yearbook.

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

Liberals Have A Quaint And Touching Faith That Truth Is On Their Side And An Even Quainter Faith That Journalists Are On The Side Of Truth.

What Would Be A Road Hazard Anywhere Else, In The Third World Is Probably The Road.

Veal Is A Very Young Beef And, Like A Very Young Girlfriend, It's Cute But Boring And Expensive.

When [george W.] Bush Was Elected, I Think They Thought I Would Have Some Sort Of Special "in" With That Administration, To Provide Some Sort Of Inside Poop. Which Is Not Something I'd Be Interested In Doing, And Anyway, I Didn't. I Actually Knew More People In His Dad's Administration. So It Was Obviously Winding Down At Rolling Stone, And They Were Having Financial Troubles, Too. They Weren't Getting The Advertising, And The Issues Were Getting Thin. They Fired Bob Love, Who'd Been My Editor There For A Long Time.

In Japan People Drive On The Left. In China People Drive On The Right. In Vietnam It Doesn't Matter.

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 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.

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

[ I'm] Humorist, I Guess. Or Really More Of A Reporter. A Reporter Who Reports On Funny Things.

If Libertarianism Were Easy To Explain, And It Weren't Easy To Exaggerate The Effects Of Libertarianism, I Think It Would Have Been Done Already. Many Many Very Intelligent People Have Applied Themselves To Crafting An Agenda That People Could Grab Ahold Of. But The Problem Of Course Is That Libertarianism Isn't Political. It Is Kind Of Anti-political. It Wants To Take A Lot Of Things Out Of The Political Arena.

East Germany Was So Total In Its Totalitarianism That Everything Was Banned Which Wasn't Compulsory.

African Famine Is Not A Visitation Of Fate. It Is Largely Man-made, And The Men Who Made It Are Largely Africans.

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.

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.

I Don't See Evidence Of America Being A Poorer Country Than It Was 20 Years Ago. I've Seen Impoverished Devastation. I've Seen Places Where Things Had Been Good And Now They Were Very Bad.

There's One More Terrifying Fact About Old People: I'm Going To Be One Soon.

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.

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

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.

Cars Would Be Safer On Rails!

There Are No Kinder Or Better People In The World Than Those Who Listen To You When You Are 18.

In The Third World, Honk Your Horn Only Under The Following Circumstances: 1. When Anything Blocks The Road. 2. When Anything Doesn't. 3. When Anything Might. 4. At Red Lights. 5. At Green Lights. 6. At All Other Times.

If Disney Still Wants To Make Epcot Center Futuristic, They Could Do So By Blowing The Place Up With An Atom Bomb.

Whereas Rolling Stone, I Just Never Had Anything To Do With Them. I'd Stop By The Office Maybe Twice A Year.

I Covered The Lebanese Civil War. I Could See A Place That Had Once Been Prosperous And Now Was Impoverished. I'm Not Seeing That In America.

Imagine Having Journalists In Your Own Home And Not Even Covering The Furniture With Plastic Sheets First.

Hunter S. Thompson And I Are Old Friends, But What We Do Is So Different. There Are Surface Similarities That Really Have To Do With Us Being Frustrated Poets.

There's Nothing Inherently Lame About Electricity. I've Got A Basement Full Of Power Tools That All Operate With Electricity, And They're Manly Items. And When You See A Great Big Locomotive Hauling A Mile Of Freight Cars, That's A Hybrid. A Lot Of People Don't Understand That.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Government Is Huge, Stupid, Greedy And Makes Nosy, Officious And Dangerous Intrusions Into The Smallest Corners Of Life - This Much We Can Stand. But The Real Problem Is That Government Is Boring. We Could Cure Or Mitigate The Other Ills Washington Visits On Us If We Could Only Bring Ourselves To Pay Attention To Washington Itself. But We Cannot.

There's A Certain Kind Of Behavior In The Arab World That, To Me, Resembles The Way Young Men Behave When There Is No Significant Influence From Women In Their Lives.

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

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.

Cleanliness Becomes More Important When Godliness Is Unlikely.

Remember, Your Body Needs 6 To 8 Glasses Of Fluid Daily. Straight Up Or On The Rocks.

The Body Is Forever Teaching Us Lessons. There Are All Sorts Of Things That We Can't Do, Shouldn't Do, Had Better Not Do Very Often Or Do For Too Long As We Get Older. The Body Makes Its Presence Known.

America Is The World's Policeman, All Right -- A Big, Dumb, Mick Flatfoot In The Middle Of The One Thing Cops Dread Most, A "domestic Disturbance.

Mike Kelly [from The Atlantic] Called Me Up And Said He Could Pay Me Less Money.

.......the Poor Of The World Cannot Be Made Rich By 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. Economic Leveling Doesn't Work. Whether We Call It Marxism, Progressive Reform, Or Clintonomics, The Result Is The Same Slide Into The Stygian Pit. Communists Worship Satan; Socialists Think Perdition Is A Good System Run By Bad Men; And Liberals Want Us To Go To Hell Because It's Warm There In The Winter.

I'd Known The People At Rolling Stone For A While. I'd Gone To Them With A Piece I'd Done On Beirut For Vanity Fair That Vanity Fair Didn't Want To Publish, Because They Said I Was Making Fun Of Death... This Was Tina Brown.but They Paid Me For It. So I've Got This Big Chunk Of A Piece, And Rolling Stone Liked It, But They Thought It Was A Little Dated. But Then They Called Me Back And Asked Me To Do A Similar Piece About The Turks And Caicos Islands, Where The Whole Government Had Been Arrested For Dope Smuggling. That Was Fun.

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.

If The Wind Is Blowing Like Stink And Everything Is Working Right, A Twelve-meter Sailboat Can Go Eleven And A Half Or Twelve Miles An Hour, The Same Speed At Which A Bond Lawyer Runs Around The Cental Park Reservoir.

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.

One Of The Problems With Being A Writer Is That All Of Your Idiocies Are Still In Print Somewhere. I Strongly Support Paper Recycling.

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.

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.

A Fruit Is A Vegetable With Looks And Money. Plus, If You Let Fruit Rot, It Turns Into Wine, Something Brussel Sprouts Never Do.

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.

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

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

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

You'll Note That Politicians No Longer Spend Money, They Invest It. Don't Worry About Paying More To The [irs]. You Aren't Being Taxed; You're Taking A Plunge On A Fly-by-night Stock Issue.

Politics Is The Art Of Achieving Prestige And Power Without Merit.

Globalization Is Simply Opening The Free Marketplace To Encompass The Entire World.

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

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.

Sometimes You Need A B-2 Bomber And Sometimes You Need Your Mother.

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."

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.

Money Is Preferable To Politics. It Is The Difference Between Being Free To Be Anybody You Want And To Vote For Anybody You Want. And Money Is More Effective Than Politics Both In Solving Problems And In Providing Individual Independence. To Rid Ourselves Of All The Trouble In The World, We Need To Make Money. And To Make Money, We Need To Be Free.

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.

There's A Very Good Reason That Governments Aren't Supposed To Compete With Private-enterprise Companies. Governments Have Monopolies On Certain Things, Like Eminent Domain And Deadly Force.

[michael] Moore Doesn't Really Use His Sense Of Humor That Much.

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.

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

The Democrats Planned To Fiddle While Rome Burned. The Republicans Were Going To Burn Rome, Then Fiddle.

You Read [bill ] Maher's Book, And He Didn't Take Econ 101. All His Arguments About Gasoline, It's Not That They're Right Or Wrong - They're Just Not Informed.

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

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.

Creative Writing Teachers Should Be Purged Until Every Last Instructor Who Has Uttered The Words 'write What You Know' Is Confined To A Labor Camp. Please, Talented Scribblers, Write What You Don't. The Blind Guy With The Funny Little Harp Who Composed The Iliad, How Much Combat Do You Think He Saw?

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'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.

Rich White Protestant Men Have Held On To Some Measure Of Power In America Almost Solely By Getting Women, Blacks, And Other Disadvantaged Groups To Wear Crippling Foot Fashions. This Keeps Them Too Busy With Corns And Bunions To Compete In The Job Market.

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?

Iraq's Invasion Of Kuwait Is A Case Of Bad Men Doing Wrong Things For Wicked Reasons. This Is The Full-sized Or Standard Purebred Evil And Is Easily Recognized Even By Moral Neophytes. Other Malignities-drugs In America, Famine In Africa And Everything In The Middle East-are More Complex. When Combating Those Evils People Sometimes Have Trouble Deciding Whom To Shoot.

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.

What About Snipers?" I Once Asked Someone. He Said, "oh, Most Of The Snipers Have Automatic Weapon. They Arent Very Accurate.

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.

The Complexity Of Economics Can Be Calculated Mathematically. Write Out The Algebraic Equation That Is The Human Heart And Multiply Each Unknown By The Population Of The World.

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

At Epcot Center The Disney Corporation Has Focused Its Attention On Two Things Greatly In Need Of Disneyfication: The Tedious Future And The Annoying Whole Wide World.

Feeling Good About Government Is Like Looking On The Bright Side Of Any Catastrophe. When You Quit Looking On The Bright Side, The Catastrophe Is Still There.

Wearing A Hat Implies That You Are Bald If You Are A Man And That Your Hair Is Dirty If You Are A Woman.

The Vietnamese Hoa Were Merchants And Manufacturers. They Were Very Successful And Thus, According To The Logic Of Marxism, Responsible For Society's Failures. The Hoa Suffered The Same Fate As The Pizza Parlour In Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing Except At The Hands Of The World's Fourth Largest Army Instead Of A Small, Petulant Movie Director.

This Country Is So Urbanized We Think Low-fat Milk Comes From Cows On Nutri/system Weight-loss Plans.

You Know Your Children Are Growing Up When They Stop Asking You Where They Came From And Refuse To Tell You Where They're Going.

Coffee And Cigarettes Are Much Better If You Want An Instant Breakfast.

In Comparative Terms, There's No Poverty In America By A Long Shot. Heritage Foundation Political Scientist Robert Rector Has Worked Up Figures Showing That When The Official U.s. Measure Of Poverty Was Developed In 1963, A Poor American Family Had An Income Twenty-nine Times Greater Than The Average Per Capita Income In The Rest Of The World. An Individual American Could Make More Money Than 93 Percent Of The Other People On The Planet And Still Be Considered Poor.

The Old Woman Was Not Only Ugly With The Ugliness Age Brings Us All But Showed Signs Of Formidable Ugliness By Birth - Pickle-jar Chin, Mainsail Ears And A Nose Like A Trigonometry Problem. What's More, She Had The Deep Frown And Snit Wrinkles That Come From A Lifetime Of Bad Character.

I Am A Great Admirer Of Women.

It Is Very Hard Now To Shock People Into Thinking About Government Regulation And The Extent Of Government Involvement In Life.

Golf Combines Two Favorite American Pastimes: Taking Long Walks And Hitting Things With A Stick.

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.

Good Manners Are A Combination Of Intelligence, Education, Taste And Style Mixed Together So That You Don't Need Any Of Those Things.

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

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

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Is The Archetypal Extremely Smart Person Who Went Into Politics Anyway Instead Of Doing Something Worthwhile For His Country.

I Am A Journalist And, Under The Modern Journalist's Code Of Olympian Objectivity (and Total Purity Of Motive), I Am Absolved Of Responsibility. We Journalists Don't Have To Step On Roaches. All We Have To Do Is Turn On The Kitchen Light And Watch The Critters Scurry.

Never Be Unfaithful To A Lover, Except With Your Wife.

Mike Had Called Me And Said He Could Offer Me Less, And I Said, "you're On!" Because I Was Really Excited With What Mike Kelly Was Doing, And Now What Cullen Murphy Is Doing With Atlantic. It's A Really Cool Magazine.

Authority Has Always Attracted The Lowest Elements In The Human Race

Because Of Their Size, Parents May Be Difficult To Discipline Properly.

Not Being A Liberal, I Have Very Little Grasp Of Things That I Know Nothing About.

In The End We Beat Them With Levi's 501 Jeans. Seventy-two Years Of Communist Indoctrination And Propaganda Was Drowned Out By A Three-ounce Sony Walkman. A Huge Totalitarian System...has Been Brought To Its Knees Because Nobody Wants To Wear Bulgarian Shoes. Now They're Lunch, And We're Number One On The Planet.

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

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.

If I Do, I Say So. That's The Only Way Out Of That. If There Are Three Words That Need To Be Used More In American Journalism, Commentary, Politics, Personal Life... It's The Magic Words "i Don't Know." I Mean, There Are Certain Basic Principles, Like The Dignity Of The Individual And The Individual's Responsibility, And Certain Basic Economic Principles, Like How When Something Costs Less, More Of It Will Be Consumed... There Are Certain Things That I Feel Pretty Confident About.

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.

The Tenth Commandment Sends A Message To Socialists, To Collectivists, To People Who Believe That Wealth Is Best Obtained By Redistribution, And That Message Is Clear And Concise . . . Egalitarianism Is Sinful; It's Also Cowardly.

With The War In Iraq, I Had The Cooperation Of The Department Of Defense. Kuwait Was Pretty Eager To Get American Journalists In There, To Show Us What A Wonderful Place They Are, And What Great Allies They Are To America, Even Though They Didn't Actually Fight In The War.

You Can Smoke Or Drink On A Golf Course Without Interrupting The Game, And You Can Take A Leak - Something You Can't Do On A Squash Court And Shouldn't Do In A Swimming Pool.

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 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.

Apparently Bolivia Is The Key Source Of Lithium In The World. So We're Gonna Trade The Saudis For The Bolivians.

How A Peaceful, Uncrowded Place With Ample Wherewithal Stays Poor Is Hard To Explain. How A Conflict-ridden, Grossly Over-populated Place With No Resources Whatsoever Gets Rich Is Simple. The British Colonial Government Turned Hong Kong Into An Economic Miracle By Doing Nothing.

Cats Are To Dogs What Modern People Are To The People We Used To Have. Cats Are Slimmer, Cleaner, More Attractive, Disloyal, And Lazy. It's Easy To Understand Why The Cat Has Eclipsed The Dog As Modern America's Favorite Poet. People Like Poets To Possess The Same Qualities They Do.

Mankind Has Invested More Than Four Million Years Of Evolution In The Attempt To Avoid Physical Exertion. Now A Group Of Backward-thinking Atavists Mounted On Foot-powered Pairs Of Hula-hoops Would Have Us Pumping Our Legs, Gritting Our Teeth, And Searing Our Lungs As Though We Were Being Chased Across The Pleistocene Savanna By Saber-toothed Tigers. Think Of The Hopes, The Dreams, The Effort, The Brilliance, The Pure Force Of Will That, Over The Eons, Has Gone Into The Creation Of The Cadillac Coupe De Ville. Bicycle Riders Would Have Us Throw All This On The Ash Heap Of History.

Politicians Are Wonderful People As Longa As They Stay Away From Things They Don't Understand, Such As Working For A Living.

Violence Is Interesting. This Is A Great Obstacle To World Peace And Also To More Thoughtful Television Programming.

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

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

We Have No One To Blame For The Kennedys But Ourselves. We Took The Kennedys To Heart Of Our Own Accord. And It Is My Opinion That We Did It Not Because We Respected Them Or Thought What They Proposed Was Good, But Because They Were Pretty. We, The Electorate, Were Smitten By This Handsome, Vivacious Family. . . . We Wanted To Hug Their Golden Tousled Heads To Our Dumpy Breasts.

Freedom Is Not Empowerment. Empowerment Is What The Serbs Have In Bosnia. Anybody Can Grab A Gun And Be Empowered. It's Not Entitlement. An Entitlement Is What People On Welfare Get, And How Free Are They? It's Not An Endlessly Expanding List Of Rights - The "right" To Education, The "right" To Food And Housing. That's Not Freedom, That's Dependency. Those Aren't Rights, Those Are The Rations Of Slavery - Hay And A Barn For Human Cattle.

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.

I Do Have To Travel A Lot For Speaking Engagements.

I Realised The Bohemian Life Was Not For Me. I Would Look Around At My Friends, Living Like Starving Artists, And Wonder, 'where's The Art?' They Weren't Doing Anything. And There Was So Much Interesting Stuff To Do, So Much Fun To Be Had... Maybe I Could Even Quit Renting.

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

Basic Human Rights

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.

Jewishness Cropped Up And Has Never Successfully Been Put Down Since.

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.

We're Gonna Be In A World Of Hurt If We Don't Get It Fixed, Because There's Going To Be Billions Of People Out There - They're Hungry, They're Mad. One Thing That They Can Get Their Hands On Is Guns.

If The Japanese Want To Be Taken Seriously As World Financial Powers, They'd Better Quit Using The Same Tailor As Variety Show Chimps.

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.

The Sport Of Skiing Consists Of Wearing Three Thousand Dollars Worth Of Clothes And Equipment And Driving Two Hundred Miles In The Snow In Order To Stand Around At A Bar And Get Drunk.

Thanksgiving Is So Called Because We Are All So Thankful That It Only Comes Once A Year.

I Suspect The Soviets Never Did Want To Use Those Bombs. The Most Stalinist Of Soviet Hard-liners - Stalin, For Example - Must Have Realized A Nuclear War Would Be A Hard Thing To Clean Up After.

...let's Talk About Soccer Scores. There Are A Few Things That People All Around The World Need To Admit To Themselves. Trade Restraints Slow Economic Growth, The Euro Is Not A Reserve Currency And Scoreless Sports Ties Are Boring.

Giving Money And Power To Government Is Like Giving Whiskey And Car Keys To Teenage Boys.

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.

Gambling Is So Pervasive In Nevada That Maybe The State Should Just Go The Whole Hog. There'd Be Gum Machines That Dispensed Chewing Tobacco If You Lost. You Could Gamble For The Toilet Paper In Public Bathroom Stalls. And Fill Out Keno Cards In An Attempt To Win Cancer Therapy At The Hospital.

Never Strike Anyone So Old, Small Or Weak That Verbal Abuse Would Have Sufficed.

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

Drugs Have Taught An Entire Generation Of Kids The Metric System

I Can Think Of A Number Of Areas In New York Where Three Acres Of Nuclear Waste Would Make The Neighborhood Safer To Walk Around In Than It Is Now, And Better Lit.

Lampoon Was A Very Collegial Operation, Though "collegial" Usually Means "friendly" And It Wasn't That Friendly. But We Were Tight, Like A Family.

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

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.

Haitians Weren't Screwed-up, But Everything Political, Intellectual, And Material Around Them Is.

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

West Germans Are Tall, Pink, Pert And Orthodontically Corrected, With Hands, Teeth And Hair As Clean As Their Clothes And Clothes As Sharp As Their Looks. Except For The Fact That They All Speak English Pretty Well, They're Indistinguishable From Americans.

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

Modern Air Travel Means Less Time Spent In Transit. That Time Is Now Spent In Transit Lounges.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Fashionably Amusing Table Manners Are A Matter Of Breaking The Right Rule At The Right Time.

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

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

Dates Used To Be Made Days Or Even Weeks In Advance. Now Dates Tend To Be Made The Day After. That Is, You Get A Phone Call From Someone Who Says, "if Anyone Asks, I Was Out To Dinner With You Last Night, Okay?"

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.

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