Best 119 quotes of Molly Ivins on MyQuotes

Although a life-long fashion dropout, I have absorbed enough by reading Harper's Bazaar while waiting at the dentist's to have grasped that the purpose of fashion is to make A Statement. My own modest Statement, discerned by true cognoscenti, is, "Woman Who Wears Clothes So She Won't Be Naked.

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.

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

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

Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.

Anyone who thinks humans are not capable of so fouling their own nest that the land and the waters can no longer be productive just hasn't been paying attention.

As for George Bush of Kennebunkport, Maine- personally I think he's further evidence that the Great Scriptwriter in the Sky has an overdeveloped sense of irony.

As I have pointed out time and again, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to send little kids to school than it is to let them grow up into young thugs who have to be sent to prison, not to mention the savings in the wear and tear on the nerves, property, and safety of the rest of the citizenry.

Behind a smoke screen of high-profile female appointees and soothing slogans, George W. Bush is waging war on women.

Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.

California is now close to spending more on prisons than it does on higher education - surely the death warrant of a civilization.

Calling George Bush shallow is like calling a dwarf short.

Conservatives are fond of pointing out there are problems in this world can't be solved by throwing money at them. There are even more that can't be solved by dropping bombs on them.

Conservatives have been mad at the Supreme Court since it decided to desegregate the schools in 1954 and seen fit to blame the federal bench for everything that has happened since then that they don't like.

Democracy requires a certain relish for confusion

During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: “Look out! They're about to smack you around again!

Economist Frederick Thayer has studied the history of our balanced-budget crusades and has come up with some depressing statistics. We have had six major depressions in our history (1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929); all six of them followed sustained periods of reducing the national debt. We have had almost chronic deficits since the 1930s, and there has been no depression since then - the longest crash-free period in our history.

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

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.

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.

Freedom fighters don't always win, but they're always right.

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

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.

Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.

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

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.

Humanism is not alive and well in Texas. Different colors and types of Texans do not like one another, nor do they pretend to.

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.

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.

I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.

I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying - it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off.

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

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.

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.

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 know vegetarians don't like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that's good for nothing but grazing.

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.

Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.

I'm sorry that government involves filling out a lot of forms. ... I'm sorry myself that we're not still on the frontier, where we could all tote guns, shoot anything that moved and spit to our hearts' content. But we live in a diverse and crowded country, and with civilization comes regulation.

In city rooms and in the bars where newspeople drink, you can find out what's going on. You can't find it in the papers.

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

I often plagiarize from myself. I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.

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.

I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

I think most of us become nicer as we get older, less judgmental, less full of certitude; life tends to knock a few corners of us as we go through. Cancer, divorce, teenagers, and other plagues make us give up on expecting ourselves - or life - to be perfect, which is a real relief.

I think of Texas as the laboratory for bad government.

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.

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.

It is quite reasonable to subscribe both to the old saw that no good girl was ever ruined by a book and to the perception that it is not good for children to be constantly exposed to the sexual violence in our popular culture. Protecting children seems to me logically, legally, and rather easily differentiated from censorship.