Molly Ivins

“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.”

“Those who think of freedom in this country as one long, broad path leading ever onward and upward are dead damned wrong.”

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

“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 ar...”

“In most legislatures, punctilious attention to correct usage is considered elitist. The word 'government,' for example, is normally pronounced 'gummint'; bureaucracy is 'bureaucacy'; fiscal...”

“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 t...”

“I spend most of my life feeling like I've been shot out of a cannon.”

“Jimmy Carter was unquestionably the most moral president of my lifetime, but he wasn't much of a president.”

“'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 f...”

“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.”

“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 far...”

“I have always been a left-winger and an outsider. I loved being that. I was perfectly cheerful with that role. Then suddenly, you're one of the talking heads on 'Nightline,' and you think yo...”

“The Federal Reserve system obviously doesn't work anymore - they keep lowering the federal discount rate, and all that happens is that the banks are making a fortune, and the old folks' CDs...”

“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 t...”

“The stakes they play for in politics are paper and money. The chips they play with are your life.”

“What I've been telling people is that the doctors are gaining on cancer very rapidly. It's almost become a chronic disease, like diabetes - something you can treat. It doesn't go away, and y...”

“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 inter...”

“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...”

“Even after four years in office, George W. Bush's record on women doesn't leap out at you. It's composed almost entirely of little things, small enough to fly well under the media's radar sc...”

“I really do think we're going through a period of concentration of ownership of media, and we're starting to see the effects at the editorial level, and it's all bad. This increased pressure...”