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Comment by nineplay | Hacker News Reader

When I was a young lass I read "Holidays in Hell" over and over again. His complaint that Europe had no real ice cubes and if you asked for Scotch on the Rocks they gave you "the crumbling leftover from some Lilliputian puddle freeze"[1] still lives in my head. I didn't always agree with him politically, then and now, but his writing and his person transcend politics.

[1] Fortunately I was able to find the exact quote on Google

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>I didn't always agree with him politically, then and now, but his writing and his person transcend politics

His intro to "Republican Party Reptile" more or less said (this is from memory) that his politics fit more into the Republican mold, but that he wasn't particularly happy about that, because he also liked having fun. It's hard to cubbyhole P.J., and he preferred it that way.

He had a way of turning a phrase that made you go, "yeah, I wish I came up with that." I have to viciously edit anything I write because if I'm not paying attention I will blithely rip off something of his without thinking about it.

Loved that book. I remember him complaining that European countries were 'stoo small to swing a cat, without it passing through customs' and that Korean dog soup was remarkably palatable 'when you consider what a hot, wet dog smells like'.

I remember reading "Modern Manners" and laughing so hard. The first edition was so extreme that the working was softened in later versions. "Dating is a social engagement with the threat of sex at its conclusion."

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