There are some very funny people on this planet. Other planets too, I’m sure… They just haven’t had their own HBO special yet.

Having said that, the funniest man on planet Earth has to be P.J. O’Rourke. (bio) Holidays in Hell left me absolutely exhausted from laughter. East Germany, Moscow, Nicaragua, Lebanon, and the original Jesusland, a theme park operated by Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, all come in for some of the most uproarious lampooning you’ll ever see in print. As a travelogue, “Holidays” rivals Mark Twain’s masterpiece “Innocents Abroad” which skewered the culture clash between Americans and Europeans.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are some of P.J.’s more amusing observations.

2001 – his review of Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village (1995) in his book The CEO of the Sofa

“The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.”

1994 – from All The Trouble in the World

“The source of contention between conservatives and liberals, the point at which the real fight begins, is when liberals say, ‘Government has enormous power; let’s use that power to make things good.’ It’s the wrong tool for the job. The liberal is trying to fix my wristwatch with a ball peen hammer.”

May 6, 1993 – from a speech to the Cato Institute, reprinted in Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

“The fact that nothing’s happening never stops a real reporter.”

1994 – from “Make Lunch, Not War”, published in Rolling Stone Magazine

“Our government gets more than thugs in a protection racket demand, more even than discarded first wives of famous rich men receive in divorce court. Then this government, swollen and arrogant with pelf, goes butting into our business. It checks the amount of tropical oils in our snack foods, tells us what kind of gasoline we can buy for our cars and how fast we can drive them, bosses us around about retirement, education and what’s on TV; counts our noses and asks fresh questions about who’s still living at home and how many bathrooms we have; decides whether the door to our office or shop should have steps or a wheelchair ramp; decrees the gender and complexion of the people to be hired there; lectures us on safe sex; dictates what we can sniff, smoke, and swallow; and waylays young men, ships them to distant places and tells them to shoot people they don’t even know.”

“There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.”

From a speech to the Cato Institute

“Term limits aren’t enough. We need jail.”

1991 – from Parliament of Whores

“You can’t get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That’s all you need to know about communism.”

May 6, 1993 – from a speech to the Cato Institute, reprinted in Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators”

1991 – from Parliament of Whores

“Liberalism … is ultimately about the primitive, ignorant, tribal idea of collective life. And about human sacrifice – liberals like that even better. The will, the conscience, the very existence of the person must be destroyed for the benefit of the mob. Liberals have the same morals as Fascists, Communists, Crips, and Bloods.”

“Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.”

If you haven’t read anything by P.J. yet, click through on the right to Amazon and browse his selections. I’m sure you’ll find something you like.