Molly Ivins Quotes

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.

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. ("Stand by, America! Newt Alert!", 1994)

In my youth, I aspired to be a great journalist. George Orwell, Albert Camus, and I. F. Stone were my heroes. Great writers and intellectuals who helped illuminate their times. But look, God gave those guys fascism, communism, colonialism, and McCarthyism to struggle against. All I got was Lubbock. It's not my fault.

[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. (Introduction)

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. ("Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing", 1995)

There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now. We are brushing off world opinion as though it mattered not a whit what other people think of us.

I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.

One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn't was a lot of time thinking about the people who build their pyramids, either.

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.

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

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

Many people did not care for Pat Buchanan's speech; it probably sounded better in the original German.

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.

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.

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.