I think we can all agree that this is very important.
We need our highest judicial body to stop this childish bickering and get back to debating the kinds of weighty constitutional issues that have absorbed the court in recent years, such as whether a city can legally force an exotic dancer to cover her entire nipple, or just the part that pokes out.
— Dave Barry, Dave Barry is Not Making This Up
“When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth…and take all the fun out of it.”
Life does not cease to be funny when people die
any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
— George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma (1906)
“‘This is living!’ ‘I gotta be me!’ ‘Ain’t we got fun!’ It’s all there in the Declaration of Independence. We are the only nation in the world based on happiness. Search as you will the Maga Charta, the /Communist Manifesto/, the Ten Commandments, the Analects of Confucius, Plato’s /Republic/, the New Testament or the UN Charter, and find me any happiness at all.
There are twenty-seven specific complaints against the British Crown set forth in the Declaration of Independence.
To modern ears they still sound reasonable, in large part, because so many of them can be leveled against the federal government of the United States.
— P.J.O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991)
We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail
One important reason we have a Defense Department is that when we give it money, it spends it, which creates jobs, whereas if we left the money in the hands of civilians, we don`t know what they`d do with it.
Probably put it in open trenches and set it on fire.
— Dave Barry, The Ultimate Deterrent against Political Fallout
Early to bed and early to rise is a bad rule for anyone who wishes to become acquainted with our most prominent and influential people.
— George Ade, True Bills (1904)
Our constitution protects aliens, drunks, and U. S. Senators. There ought to be one day (just one) when there is open season on senators.
— Will Rogers, Autobiography
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right…The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.
Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.
— James Bovard, “Individual Rights“, Sacramento Bee (1994)
Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All too Human
A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
— Joseph Roux, Meditations of a Parish Priest
What stops a man who can laugh from speaking the truth?
– Horace, cited in P.J. O’Rourke’s book Parliament of Whores
One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on.
And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.
– P. J. O’Rourke, Rolling Stone Magazine, November 1989
People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.
– Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Fare well, one of our favorite wordsmiths
William Safire (December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009), Rules for Writers, from On Language
Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing.
For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes:
…which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.
– P.J. O’Rourke, The Wit and Wisdom of P. J. O’Rourke
It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don’t think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at).
There’s a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty…Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever
– unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime.
– Thomas Aldrich, letter to Professor E.S. Morse, circa 1889
Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule.
– P.J.O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991)
The Tyranny of the Majority, vs the Unanimity of Liberty
Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter.
I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.
– Will Rogers, Saturday Review (25 August 1962)
But Now You Know
Words of the Sentient 
