"We’re told cars are dangerous. It’s safer to drive through South Central Los Angeles than to walk there. We’re told cars are wasteful. Wasteful of what? Oil did a lot of good sitting in the ground for millions of years. We’re told cars should be replaced with mass transportation. But it’s hard to reach the drive-through window at McDonald’s from a speeding train. And we’re told cars cause pollution. A hundred years ago city streets were ankle deep in horse excrement. What kind of pollution do you want? Would you rather die of cancer at eighty or typhoid fever at nine?"
React to this quote
More by P. J. O'Rourke
See allResonant Thoughts
"I know when it’s the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it’s the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer dev…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"Every writer, like everybody else, thinks he's living through the crisis of the ages. To write honestly and…"
— Eudora Welty"I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ woul…"
— Morrissey"For precocity some great price is always demanded sooner or later in life."
— Margaret Fuller"The weakness of the dying slanders life."
— Joseph Joubert"It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life."
— P. D. James"On life's list of fun things to do, comes in somewhere below sitting in a tub full of scissors."
— Jeff Foxworthy