Daily Inspiration Quote by P. J. O'Rourke

O'Rourke turns the genteel ritual of the party into a small act of social extortion, then drives the point home with a punchline so impolite it becomes diagnostic. The joke isn’t just that hosts are selfish; it’s that the whole polite economy of entertaining is structured around competing agendas, and everyone pretends otherwise. By framing the host’s "purpose" as something other than your pleasure, he’s puncturing the guest’s default fantasy: that being invited means being valued. In his hands, the invitation looks more like a conscription notice.

The line works because it treats hospitality as logistics. If pleasure were truly the goal, he argues, efficiency would win: outsource indulgence directly to the guest. The absurd image of champagne and women arriving "by taxi" is doing double duty. It’s a caricature of masculine entitlement (the guest as a consumer of pleasure) and a barb at the performance aspect of parties (the host as producer, guests as extras). You’re not there to have fun; you’re there to validate the host’s self-image, lubricate their networking, witness their taste, admire their home, confirm their place in the pecking order.

Context matters: O'Rourke is a journalist-satirist of late-20th-century American manners, a writer who treats institutions - politics, media, etiquette - as arenas where lofty language disguises grubby motives. The cynicism lands because it’s recognizably true in a world where social life is often less about connection than about managing status, and where "a good time" can be a pretext for unpaid emotional labor and obligatory small talk. The vulgarity isn’t incidental; it’s his way of stripping the tuxedo off the room.