Top 258 Quotes & Sayings by Molly Ivins - Page 3

I saw a shrink because I thought I suffered from fear of success.

For years, I have been trying to persuade people that George W. Bush, although no Einstein, is not stupid.

We need to reform the political system, or we'll lose the democracy. I don't think it's that hard. It doesn't take rocket science. We've done it before successfully at the presidential level and tried it several places at the state level.

Texas is still resistant to Howard Johnsons, interstate highways and some forms of phoniness. It is the place least likely to become a replica of everyplace else. It's authentically awful, comic, and weirdly charming, all at the same time.

People like to help. They like to be able to do something for you. Let them.

Public campaign financing isn't perfect and can doubtlessly be improved upon as we go.

If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to own the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

The greatest moral leader of my lifetime was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose private life does not bear close examination.

I'm happy to be called a liberal.

One of the more urp-making habits of media mavens is presuming to speak for the American people, as in 'The American people won't stand for this!'

Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.

In most legislatures, punctilious attention to correct usage is considered elitist. The word 'government,' for example, is normally pronounced 'gummint'; bureaucracy is 'bureaucacy'; fiscal comes out 'physical,' and one moves not to suspend the rules, but to 'suppend.'

One seldom expects the country's president to adequately note the passing of a rocker, but Jimmy Carter's assessment of Elvis Presley's appeal - 'energy, rebelliousness and good humor' - is remarkably close to the mark.

I do object to those who jump from political hackery to flackery and expect respect.

There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

Losing a part of a breast or all of one or both has, obviously, serious psychological consequences.

Am I the only person covering politics who ever noticed that Newt Gingrich is actually a nincompoop?

It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there.

Sometimes misunderstandings between bloggers and the MSM are the result of simple ignorance.

There is never anyone quite so wonderful as the people who were seniors when you were a freshman.

A teenage foot that never tapped to 'Heartbreak Hotel' in the '50s probably belonged to a hopeless grind.

Here's the deal on Texas. It's big. So big, there's about five distinct and different places here, separated from one another geologically, topographically, botanically, ethnically, culturally, and climatically.

Legislative language is governed by a law of etymology that is also the ancient code of the bureaucracy: It doesn't have to be right, it just has to be close enough for government work. If they understand what you mean, it doesn't matter what you say or how you say it.

I only aim at the powerful.

How come trying to explode myths about Texas always winds up reinforcing them?

From orphanages to space colonies, it was all shallow but endearingly enthusiastic futurism. Gingrich was the kind of person who read a book or two on something and would then be quite afire as to how this was going to fit into some shining future.

The extent to which not just state legislatures but the Congress of the United States are now run by large corporate special interests is beyond mere recognition as fact. The takeover is complete.

Those who imagine polygamy to be handy cover for promiscuity are apparently off the mark. If polygamists share one quality, it is that, polygamy aside, they are extraordinarily strait-laced.

Truly, if you can't cover a five-car pile-up on Route 128, you should not be covering a presidential campaign.

Every two years, one of the most hotly contested elections in Texas is the poll taken among members of the capitol press corps to determine who are actually the ten stupidest members of the Legislature. Two years ago, there were thirty-seven official nominees and several write-ins.

It's all very well to run around saying regulation is bad, get the government off our backs, etc. Of course our lives are regulated. When you come to a stop sign, you stop; if you want to go fishing, you get a license; if you want to shoot ducks, you can shoot only three ducks. The alternative is dead bodies at the intersections, no fish and no ducks. OK?

It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

Either we figure out how to keep corporate cash out of the political system or we lose the democracy.

I think of Texas as the laboratory for bad government.

Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.

It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.

I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.

If an armed nation were a polite nation, America would be paradise. We have more than 200 million guns in private owernship here. But our manners are not getting better.

If his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day

On the whole, I prefer not to be lectured on patriotism by those who keep offshore maildrops in order to avoid paying their taxes.

What we have here, fellow citizens, is a crassly egocentric, raving twit.

When politicians start talking about large groups of their fellow Americans as 'enemies,' it's time for a quiet stir of alertness. Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country.

Americans are not getting screwed by the Republican Party. They're getting screwed by the large corporations that bought and own the Republican Party.

If you ever get to the place where injustice doesn't bother you, you're dead.

I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point--race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything.

Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences.

How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion.

The first rule of holes: When you're in one stop digging.

Listen to the people who are talking about how to fix what's wrong, not the ones who just work people into a snit over the problems. Listen to the people who have ideas about how to fix things, not the ones who just blame others.

I know: "Guns Don't Kill People." But I suspect that they have something to do with it. If you point your finger at someone and say, "Bang, bang, you're dead," not much actually happens.

I learned two things growing up in Texas. 1: God loves you, and you're going to burn in hell forever. 2: Sex is the dirtiest and most dangerous thing you can possibly do, so save it for someone you love.

Whenever you hear a politician carry on about what a mess the schools are, be aware that you are looking at the culprit.

The charm of Ronald Reagan is not just that he kept telling us screwy things, it was that he believed them all. No wonder we trusted him, he never lied to us. ... His stubbornness, even defiance, in the face of facts ('stupid things,' he once called them in a memorable slip) was nothing short of splendid. ... This is the man who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency.

On Bill Clinton: "If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal.

The impulse to make ourselves safer by making ourselves less free is an old one ... When we are badly frightened, we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing some of our liberties. We did it during the McCarthy era out of fear of communism. Less liberty is regularly proposed as a solution to crime, to pornography, to illegal immigration, to abortion, to all kinds of threats.

I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.

What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

In Texas, we do not hold high expectations for the [governor's] office; it's mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose.