The Funny Stuff: The Official P. J. O’Rourke Quotationary and Riffapedia

A compendium of quotes and riffs by P.J. O’Rourke onsubjects ranging from government (“Giving money and power to politicians islike giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys”) to fishing (”a sportinvented by insects and you are the bait”) to apps (“we need a no-app app—let’scall it a nap”) to be published on what would have been his 75 th birthday. “P. J. O’Rourke was the funniest writer of hisgeneration, one of the smartest and one of the most prolific. Now that hebelongs to the ages, P.J. takes his rightful place along with Oscar Wilde, MarkTwain and Dorothy Parker in the Pantheon of Quote Gods.”—ChristopherBuckley from his introduction When The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations waspublished in 1994, P. J. O’Rourke had more entries than any living writer. Andhe kept writing funny stuff for another 28 years. Now, for the first time, thebest material is collected in  one volume. Edited by his longtime friendand member of the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame TerryMcDonell, THE FUNNY STUFF is arranged in six sections, organized by subject inalphabetical order from Agriculture to Xenophobia. From his earliest days atthe National Lampoon in the 1970s, through his classicreporting for Rolling Stone in the 80s and 90s to hispost-Trump, pandemic, new media observations of recent years, P.J. producedincisive, amusing copy. Not only did P.J. write memorable one-liners, he alsometiculously constructed riffs that built to a crescendo of hilarity andoutrage—and are still being quoted years later. His prose has the electricverbal 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, humannature—and fun. THE FUNNY STUFF is a book for P.J. fans to devour but also abook that will bring new readers and stand as testament to one of the trulyoriginal American writers of the last 50 years.