Molly Ivins Quotes

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Molly Ivins

Profession : Journalist

Birth : August 30, 1944

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.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

I've always found it easier to be funny than to be serious.

Molly Ivins

And the funny thing is, I've always been an optimist - it's practically a congenital disorder with me.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part and discuss it only with consenting adults.

Molly Ivins

I never saw anything funnier than Texas politics.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

Satire is a weapon, and it can be quite cruel.

Molly Ivins

The trouble with capitalism as a system is that only those who have or can get capital can make it work for them, and that leaves out damn near all of us.

Molly Ivins

When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.

Molly Ivins

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.

Molly Ivins

What we call politics now and what most political writers write about is the empathy and the bonding and the word choice and the horse rights, and it has nothing to do with what's really happening to people's lives.

Molly Ivins

Good thing we've still got politics in Texas - finest form of free entertainment ever invented.

Molly Ivins

The thing is this: You got to have fun while you're fightin' for freedom, 'cause you don't always win.

Molly Ivins

There is more hooey spread about the Second Amendment. It says quite clearly that guns are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, i.e., the armed forces including the National Guard. The reasons for keeping them away from everyone else get clearer by the day.

Molly Ivins

In order to understand why George W. Bush doesn't get it, you have to take several strands of common Texas attitude, then add an impressive degree of class-based obliviousness. What you end up with is a guy who sees himself as a perfectly nice fellow - and who is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people.

Molly Ivins