P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

The human's place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution, the product of our biological inheritance.

You might find me outside with a can of hair spray, spraying it with the hope that the sun will burn a hole in the Earth. Another part of me hopes people will grow up and evolve and get smarter. That's the paradox of Marilyn Manson.

When I was a kid, maybe 11, I remember saying, 'When I grow up I wanna have enough money to buy a really cool car, because I won't.'

I think almost everything about humans and human civilization is explained better by evolution than anything else.

As a species, we would not have survived without humor.

If God had meant for us to walk, why did he give us feet that fit car pedals?

I have discovered the missing link between the anthropoid apes and civilized men. It's us!

Sometimes I think that Darwin made a mistake and that in fact man is descended from the pig, because eight out of every ten members of the human race are swine, and as crooked as a hog's tail.

A truck driver was driving along on the freeway. A sign comes up that reads, Low Bridge Ahead. Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck under the bridge. Cars are backed up for miles. Finally a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, Got stuck, huh? The truck driver says, No, I was delivering this bridge and ran out of gas.

Nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the onset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have a malady in the less attractive forms.

Knowing comedy is knowing human nature.

Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.

If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well.

What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?

A well-balanced person is one who finds both sides of an issue laughable.

I'm many things, most of 'em bad. But a man of political principles? No.

that while the world wasn't built for humans, we were built for the world.

Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.

We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.

Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

Henry Ford didn't just create a cheap way of getting away from your in-laws; he basically understood that there was something in us as a culture that wanted to be on the move, that wanted to get out.

I studied with the Maharishi for many years, and really didn't learn that much. But one thing that he taught me, I'll never forget: 'ALWAYS...' no, wait-- 'NEVER...' no, wait, it was 'ALWAYS carry a litter bag in your car. It doesn't take up much room, and if it gets full, you can toss it out the window.'

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

I worry that humanity has been "advanced" to its present level of incompetency because evolution works on the Peter Principle.