Top 258 Quotes & Sayings by Molly Ivins
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American journalist Molly Ivins.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
The thing is this: You got to have fun while you're fightin' for freedom, 'cause you don't always win.
If you really wanted to settle down the Middle East, if what you wanted was change in the Middle East, it is perfectly obvious that the first step is resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Anyone who has ever spent time listening to a legislature knows the astonishing speed at which all presiding officers and reading clerks can spit out the formulaic incantations of parliamentary procedure.
I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were 'German dogs.' They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.
If you grew up white before the civil rights movement anywhere in the South, all grown-ups lied. They'd tell you stuff like, 'Don't drink out of the colored fountain, dear, it's dirty.' In the white part of town, the white fountain was always covered with chewing gum and the marks of grubby kids' paws, and the colored fountain was always clean.
The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
Truth is, I've spent much of my life trying, unsuccessfully, to explode the myths about Texas.
The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.
Satire is a weapon, and it can be quite cruel.
Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.
Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.
Some days, I'd feel better with Punxsutawney Phil in the Oval Office - at least he doesn't lie about the weather.
One of the few things I like about Bill Clinton is that he has very good manners. If his momma were still alive, I would congratulate her.
The only reason to have a positive mental attitude is that it makes life better. It doesn't cure cancer.
Many a time freedom has been rolled back - and always for the same sorry reason: fear.
All my life, I've been sort of a professional optimist, full of good cheer about matters political and journalistic. I always thought I'd get older and become an unnaturally cheerful old fart. But it's not happening.
Rush Limbaugh's pathetic abuse of logic, his absurd pomposity, his relentless self-promotion, his ridiculous ego - now those, friends, are appropriate targets for satire.
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.
People asked me during the Iraq war if I was afraid to speak out. I said no.
Naturally, when it comes to voting, we in Texas are accustomed to discerning that fine hair's-breadth worth of difference that makes one hopeless dipstick slightly less awful than the other. But it does raise the question: Why bother?
I have known George W. Bush slightly since we were both in high school, and I studied him closely as governor. He is neither mean nor stupid. What we have here is a man shaped by three intertwining strands of Texas culture, combined with huge blinkers of class. The three Texas themes are religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo.
You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.
Good thing we've still got politics in Texas - finest form of free entertainment ever invented.
Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.
Jimmy Carter was unquestionably the most moral president of my lifetime, but he wasn't much of a president.
I'm sorry to say cancer can kill you, but it doesn't make you a better person.
So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.
Even I felt sorry for Richard Nixon when he left; there's nothing you can do about being born liberal - fish gotta swim, and hearts gotta bleed.
Raise hell - big time. I want y'all to get out there and raise hell about damned near everything. My word, there's a world out there that needs fixing. Get out there and get after it.
I spend most of my life feeling like I've been shot out of a cannon.
You look at the large problems that we face - that would be overpopulation, water shortages, global warming and AIDS, I suppose - all of that needs international cooperation to be solved.
In Congress, there are some who are unashamed to aspire to eloquence, even to scholarship, but the only state legislator I ever knew who would not join in the mispronounceciation of a word for the sake of camaraderie with her fellows was former State Senator and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
I spent my girlhood as a Clydesdale among thoroughbreds.
The reason I take Rush Limbaugh seriously is not because he's offensive or right-wing, but because he is one of the few people addressing a large group of disaffected people in this country. And despite his frequent denials, Limbaugh does indeed have a somewhat cult-like effect on his ditto heads.
Anyone who watched George W. and Karl Rove while the former was governor of Texas will recognize a familiar pattern. Like much of Bush's social policy - from faith-based social services to railing against gay marriage - women's issues are one of the bones they've decided they can throw to the Christian right.
When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.
I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.
It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.
'The New York Times' is a great newspaper: it is also No Fun.
The trouble with blaming powerless people is that although it's not nearly as scary as blaming the powerful, it does miss the point. Poor people do not shut down factories... Poor people didn't decide to use 'contract employees' because they cost less and don't get any benefits.
The reason there is no noblesse oblige about Dubya is because he doesn't admit to himself or anyone else that he owes his entire life to being named George W. Bush. He didn't just get a head start by being his father's son - it remained the single most salient fact about him for most of his life.
I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part and discuss it only with consenting adults.
I never saw anything funnier than Texas politics.
It is the stories we don't get, the ones we miss, pass over, fail to recognize, don't pick up on, that will send us to hell.
We liberals do sometimes forsake our vows of compassion for all mankind.
When I was first diagnosed, I went out, as a book person, and got some books on cancer and looked up my version of the disease. It said that I had about a 5 percent chance of survival. I said, 'Gosh, well, it's been a good run.' What I didn't realize is that in the two years since those books were published, things had shifted dramatically.
Behind a smoke screen of high-profile female appointees and soothing slogans, George W. Bush is waging war on women.
'Get along, go along' is not an inspirational philosophy, and only God knows how much moral cowardice it has covered up over the years. Serve your time, collect your chits, and cash 'em in for your home state? No, I'd say we could ask for more than that from our senators.
And the funny thing is, I've always been an optimist - it's practically a congenital disorder with me.
The Internet goes doot-doot-doot - it goes sideways. There's nothing hierarchical about it. And the best thing about it is also the worst thing about it, which is there are no gatekeepers on the Internet. Consequently, there's a whole lot of bad information on the Internet. But I think that sorts itself out over time.
Havin' fun while freedom fightin' must be one of those lunatic Texas traits we get from the water - which is known to have lithium in it - because it goes all the way back to Sam Houston, surely the most lovable, the most human, and the funniest of all the great men this country has ever produced.
The idols of one's adolescence tend to endure - you never forget how you worshipped them.
I think provincialism is an endemic characteristic with mankind, I think everybody everywhere is provincial, but it is particularly striking with Texans, and we tend to be very Texcentric.
As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.
As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic shih tzus in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.
I've always found it easier to be funny than to be serious.
I've always had trouble with male authority figures because my father was such a martinet.
Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.
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