Famed journalist, satirist and author PJ O’Rourke died earlier this month. Recently we also lost Anne Rice and Joan Didion, great American writers whose work will live on.
PJ O’Rourke was born in 1947 and grew up in Ohio. His father was a Buick car dealer. Check out some of his books, in particular All the Trouble in the World, Parliament of Whores, and Holidays in Hell.
Here are some fabulous lines he left us with:
1. When it came to letting go of bourgeois proprieties, I let go with both hands.
2. A highly placed government official did not get to be in a position of power and importance by being stupid enough to tell the truth to newspaper reporters.
3. The Iraq war was not only the first live televised war, it’s also the first war covered by sober journalists.
4. It was so much fun at the National Lampoon because it was truly an adolescent’s dream.
5. Most of human life should be guided by common sense and not by legal quibbling.
6. Of course, I exaggerate for effect.
7. I’m not an artist, I’m a journalist. I like to get stuff published and I like to make money – get a lot of readers if I possibly can.
8. Have I changed with the times? Gosh, what a strange person I’d be if I haven’t.
9. When you see the establishment not just disagreeing with your candidate but mocking their candidate, there’s an element that says, they are mocking me.
10. When people feel they are outsiders you cannot convince them by mocking them.
11. What makes the baby boom different from other generations is the way everybody was feeling we could be or do anything. What unifies the baby boomers is the way we talked everybody into letting us get away with it.
12. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
13. Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.
14. Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
15. To mistrust science and deny the validity of scientific method is to resign your job as a human. You’d better go look for work as a plant or wild animal.
16. Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
17. A U.S. dollar is an IOU from the Federal Reserve Bank. It is a promissory note that doesn’t actually promise anything. It is not backed by gold or silver.
18. Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.
19. The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.
20. If you are young and drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat – in other words, turn you into an adult.
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