Randolph Polk > Randolph's Quotes

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“To say goodbye is to die a little.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.”
― Raymond Chandler, Long Goodbye

“It's hard being left behind. (...) It's hard to be the one who stays.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
― Robert Frost

“Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.”
― Graham Greene

“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. ”
― Raymond Chandler

“From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.”
― Raymond Chandler, The High Window

“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
― P. J. O'Rourke

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World

“It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.”
― Roger Ebert

“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
― Roger Ebert

“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will.”
― Roger Ebert

“The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government

“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer

“Life always has an unhappy ending, but you can have a lot of fun along the way, and everything doesn't have to be dripping in deep significance.”
― Roger Ebert

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.”
― Robert Benchley

“Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly. ”
― Roger Ebert

“Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.”
― P. J. O'Rourke

“What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable.”
― Roger Ebert

“There was nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.”
― Ross Macdonald, The Drowning Pool

“We had a choice between Democrats who couldn't learn from the past and Republicans who couldn't stop living in it...”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

“Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People