QuoteProject
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.
P. J. O'Rourke
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote humorously suggests that people are more honest in casual settings like bars than in formal situations.

P. J. O'Rourke highlights the idea that informal environments, such as bars, can foster greater honesty in conversations. In contrast to more structured settings like briefings or books, where information might be filtered or less genuine, a bar's relaxed atmosphere encourages people to express themselves more openly, even if it's still a blend of truth and embellishment.

Themes

HonestyTruthBarsResearchCasual

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be shared in a discussion about how environments affect communication during a social event.

More from P. J. O'Rourke

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
P. J. O'RourkeRead

Similar quotes

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.
Eleanor RooseveltRead
Use the word 'zeitgeist' as often as possible. Ideally, you want to find words that sound familiar but people don't really know their definitions: 'zeitgeist,' 'bildungsroman,' 'doppelganger' - better yet, anything Latin. But avoid 'paradigm.' It's so 1994. If you say the word 'paradigm,' everybody knows you're a poser.
Stephen ColbertRead
People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.
Robin WilliamsRead
Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.
Robert Penn WarrenRead
I think a lot of people mistake my confidence on stage for cockiness in real life, and that's actually farthest from the truth. When I'm on stage, I'm that confident and that cocky because I have a microphone in my hand, and there's a few thousand people staring at me. And I know they're there to laugh.
Russell PetersRead
If we had no faults, we would not derive so much pleasure from noting those of other people.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.