The Funny Stuff: The Official P. J. O'Rourke Quotationary and Riffapedia - Softcover

O'Rourke, P J

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802160824 ISBN 13: 9780802160829

Verlag: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

A compendium of quotes and riffs by P.J. O’Rourke on subjects ranging from government (“Giving money and power to politicians is like giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys”) to fishing (”a sport invented by insects and you are the bait”) to apps (“we need a no-app app—let’s call it a nap”) to be published on what would have been his 75th birthday. 

“P. J. O’Rourke was the funniest writer of his generation, one of the smartest and one of the most prolific. Now that he belongs to the ages, P.J. takes his rightful place along with Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker in the Pantheon of Quote Gods.”—Christopher Buckley from his introduction

When The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations was published in 1994, P. J. O’Rourke had more entries than any living writer. And he kept writing funny stuff for another 28 years. Now, for the first time, the best material is collected in one volume. Edited by his longtime friend and member of the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame Terry McDonell, THE FUNNY STUFF is arranged in six sections, organized by subject in alphabetical order from Agriculture to Xenophobia. From his earliest days at the National Lampoon in the 1970s, through his classic reporting for Rolling Stone in the 80s and 90s to his post-Trump, pandemic, new media observations of recent years, P.J. produced incisive, amusing copy. Not only did P.J. write memorable one-liners, he also meticulously constructed riffs that built to a crescendo of hilarity and outrage—and are still being quoted years later. His prose has the electric verbal energy of Tom Wolfe or Hunter Thompson, but P.J. is more flat out funny. And through it all comes his clear-eyed take on politics, economics, human nature—and fun. THE FUNNY STUFF is a book for P.J. fans to devour but also a book that will bring new readers and stand as testament to one of the truly original American writers of the last 50 years.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

P. J. O’ROURKE (1947–2022) was anauthor, journalist, and political satirist who wrote twenty-two books onsubjects as diverse as politics and cars and etiquette and economics. Parliamentof Whores and Give War a Chance both reached #1 on the New YorkTimes bestseller list. After beginning his career writing for the NationalLampoon, O’Rourke went on to serve as foreign affairs desk chief for RollingStone where he reported from far-flung places. Later he wrote for a numberof publications, including The Atlantic, the Daily Beast, the WallStreet Journal, and the Weekly Standard, and was a longtime paneliston NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.

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GOVERNMENT

A little government and a little luck are necessary inlife, but only a fool trusts either of them.

—Parliament of Whores

AMERICA

America’s political ideologies (of which we currently havethree—Left, Right, and Insane—with considerable overlap between the third andthe other two) claim to have all the answers.

—A Cry from the Far Middle

IMMIGRATION

We don’t need a wall on our border; we need gates withturnstiles and ticket-takers. The right way to limit immigration (and makepeople in foreign countries pay for it) is to charge admission to the UnitedStates. Disneyland costs $100 a day. There are at least 12 million illegalimmigrants in America. By my calculation, you’re leaving $438 billion a year onthe table.

—How the Hell Did ThisHappen?

 

RENTAL CARS

There’s a lot of debate about what kind of car handlesbest. Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rentedcar. You can go faster, turn corners sharper, and put the transmission intoreverse while going forward at a higher rate of speed in a rented car than inany other kind. You can also park without looking, and you can use the trunk asan ice chest. A rented car is an all-terrain vehicle. Mud, snow, water,woods—you can take a rented car anywhere. True, you can’t always get itback—but that’s not your problem, is it?

—RepublicanParty Reptile

 

CONGRESS

When buying and selling are controlledby legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

—Parliament of Whores

 

REPORTERS

If youspend seventy-two hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whoselanguage you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities youdon’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest knowitall, you’re areporter.

—Holidaysin Heck

SOCIAL MEDIA

Withsocial media, we’ve done something worse than create a world where we can hearwhat everybody says. We’ve created a world where we can hear whateverybody thinks.

—A Cryfrom the Far Middle

 

SOCIAL SECURITY

Social Security is a government program with aconstituency made up of the old, the near-old and those who hope or fear togrow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a specialinterest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselvesrich.

—Parliament of Whores

 

MIND-ALTERING

I lovethat phrase, “mind-altering drugs.” As if there were no changes in brainfunction after you drink six cups of coffee before doing your taxes or afteryou drink four martinis before putting the nut dish on your head, mounting theback of the sofa, and reciting “Charge of the Light Brigade” to the cocktailparty.  But I digress. Which I find I’mdoing a lot while writing about the drug culture. It may have something to dowith the drugs. I’ll have to go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall.

—A Cryfrom the Far Middle

 

AUSTRALIA

Australiais not very exclusive. On the visa application they still ask if you’ve beenconvicted of a felony—although they are willing to give you a visa even if youhaven’t been.

—Holidaysin Hell

 

ENGLAND

Oxford and Cambridge have courses in anthropology,sociology, psychology, political science, economics, and no telling what else.Meanwhile the British Empire has shrunk to three IRA informants, a time-sharedeal with the Red Chinese in Hong Kong, and that bed-and-breakfast of anisland, Bermuda. Sic transit gloria mundi, as if anybody knew what that meantanymore.

—Age and Guile

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0802160824
• ISBN 13: 9780802160829
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar