Book cover: Holidays in Hell

Book cover

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Book cover

Holidays in Hell

P.J. O'Rourke

Quotes

  1. The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  2. Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  3. In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  4. The interesting thing about staring down a gun barrel is how small the hole is where the bullet comes out, yet what a big difference it would make in your social schedule.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  5. There are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get on one voluntarily.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  6. I am no stranger to loud noise. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  7. I've always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  8. Only one way to cover a story like this, and make that a double, bartender, please.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  9. Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  10. I can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners— two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  11. Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  12. To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  13. Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  14. I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  15. The most extraordinary change in Moscow was Arbat Street, the USSR's first pedestrian mall. Of course, there's something a little sad about a pedestrian mall in a nation where few people own cars— the whole damn country's a pedestrian mall.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  16. It had never occurred to us that the Kremlin's new anti-booze campaign would apply to journalists. Now, that's a human-rights violation.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  17. The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  18. The America's Cup is like driving your Lamborghini to the Grand Prix track to watch the charter buses race.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  19. What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  20. If Christ came back tomorrow, He'd have to change planes in Frankfurt. Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now spent in transit lounges.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  21. The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  22. Moscow has changed. I was here in 1982, during the Brezhnev twilight, and things are better now. For instance, they've got litter. In 1982 there was nothing to litter with.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  23. One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  24. War will exist as long as there's a food chain.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  25. The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  26. There are probably more fact-finding tours of Nicaragua right now than there are facts— the country has shortages of practically everything.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  27. Cockfighting has always been my idea of a great sport— two armed entrées battling to see who'll be dinner.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  28. Everything on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren't on a boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it's how people who mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually finished college.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  29. Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm worried about the difference between wrong and fun.

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell
  30. They don't like anyone who isn't Korean, and they don't like each other all that much, either. They're hardheaded, hard-drinking, tough little bastards, "the Irish of Asia".

    Book cover: Holidays in HellHolidays in Hell

That’s all the quotes.

30 quotes in the collection · come back when we add more