P. J. O'Rourke

Watching Republicans in Washington is like watching lemmings, if lemmings jumped into cesspools instead of off cliffs.

Some taxpayers may object to a print journalism bailout on the grounds that it mostly benefits the liberal elite. And we can't blame taxpayers for being reluctant to subsidize the reportorial careers of J-school twerps who should have joined the Peace Corps and gone to Africa to 'speak truth to power' to Robert Mugabe.

I live in rural New Hampshire, and we are, frankly, short on people who are black, gay, Jewish, and Hispanic. In fact, we're short on people. My town has a population of 301.

Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats.

Democrats hate success.

Fall of the Berlin wall? Being there was fun. Nations that flaked off of the Soviet Union in southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus? Being there was not so fun.

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.

We Americans, who invented traffic, are always being startled by the forms into which it has evolved around the world.

America gives every appearance of being a nation besotted with trashiness - divorce, illegitimacy, casual Fridays.

There are selves too big for one person to contain. You cannot call them selfish. There is nothing -ish about such selves. They are the self, as it were, itself.

Why is Iraq so easy to harm and so hard to help?

The only advantage to being a middle-aged man is that when you put on a jacket and tie, you're the Scary Dad. Never mind that no one has had an actually scary dad since 1966. The visceral fear remains.