P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

It was my very good fortune to find a mentor, Clay Felker, who started my career at the 'New York Magazine' as a freelance writer when I had to quit my job at the 'Herald Tribune' to stay home with my young daughter.

It used to be that a fellow went on the police force when everything else failed, but today he goes in the advertising game.

I was at home waiting for projects. I was on Parenthood and there was one season left, and I was thinking, "What's next?" I'm at this age where I'm trying to write my own script, and they sent this over and I decided to put myself on tape.

Your cameras can't control the minds of those who know, that you'll even sell your soul just to get a story sold.

There are always going to be people who are more famous and more bankable than you, and then conversely, you may be more famous and more bankable than other people. But, there was a time that I would take jobs because they were there.

When I landed in L.A. in early '89, William Morris decided to take me on to see if I could get any jobs. I was cast in a TV movie called Protected Surf, and made $30,000 in four weeks, and I decided I needed to take acting seriously, because I had never made that much money in a year, much less four weeks. That's when I decided I thought I could make a career out of it.

Well, it was strange, because the phone rang and a teaching job turned up that sounded interesting. And I always did my own work. The Animals and a lot of Public Relations were done while I was doing commercial work.

I never got a job from a poor person.

I think we do need better training programs, we do need a way to get people from careers that are dead-end into new careers.

I will say that the difference was that when you're an Army journalist, as opposed to a civilian correspondent covering the military, you're very often either a public relations agent or expected to perform that role. I would say that one of the most unexpected benefits of that job was being taught to never try to cover anything up, but rather to get any bad information out right away, so that there would be nothing more to come out later. This was a wonderful lesson to be taught because often the effort to cover up a story becomes a bigger story than the original one.

A fast food job, for most people, should be an entry level position. If you see no path for advancement beyond that, it's time to take a real fast look at your human capital and learn a skill that will make you more money.

I never quit my job until I had my next job.

Thanks to my solid academic training, today I can write hundreds of words on virtually any topic without possessing a shred of information which is how I got a good job in journalism.

I've always been interested in jobs in the NBA. But I've been in this for 20 years and it might be time to do something else.

If you ask, who has the chance to move into the city and get a good job out in the developing world? It's a man. Who's left to care for the kids back at home? The woman is.

A woman is a full time job. You have to choose your profession.

It's probably fair to say I have taken myself too seriously on some jobs. I'm sure I'm more guilty of being difficult than I'd like to remember. I don't regret my desires; I've regretted the way I would communicate my desires. Maybe I've lost a job because of some rumor, I doubt it. But nobody good that I've worked with has ever said anything negative about me, because we've never had a negative experience. By good, I mean directors who do their homework, people that are passionate, crazy, never sleep, and do like I do and just go after it.

A really large percentage of kids from Duke go to work on Wall Street, and they make a lot of money, but they're almost slaves to their jobs, working crazy hours. Their job totally dominates their lives, and most of them aren't happy. So many of my friends are going down that path. I even thought about it for a second, like "Should I be doing that?" But I just pursued my dreams instead, and I always tell people to do that. Now I make more money than they do, and I'm doing what I love.

I never made conscious choices. There were times in my life that I chose the first job that came along because I was broke. I think that there were maybe a handful of times that I had a choice. In recent years, Ive had more of a choice, and its been very nice to have that choice, but most of the time, you just hope that theres another job after this one.

There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!

Journalism should never be prostituted for selfish ends or for the sake of merely earning a livelihood or, worse still, for amassing money.

Father: 'Anything but journalism.' I rebelled.

People are out there looking for jobs and realizing that they have to look within to do and create what the new and next thing will be. They can't rely anymore on what was usually given to them.

As a journalist, your job is to bear witness.

The profession of a prostitute is the only career in which the maximum income is paid to the newest apprentice. It is the one calling in which at the beginning the only exertion is that of self-indulgence; all the prizes are at the commencement. It is the ever-new embodiment of the old fable of the sale of the soul to the Devil. The tempter offers wealth, comfort, excitement, but in return the victim must sell her soul, nor does the other party forget to exact his due to the uttermost farthing.