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We are riveted by the soap operas of public lives. We admire the famous most for what makes them infamous: it reassures us that they are not better and no happier than all the people with their noses pressed hard against the glass.

Maureen Dowd

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Maureen Dowd
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: January 14
Columnist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Maureen Brigid Dowd
Admire
Pressed
Fame
Soap
Public
Happier
Lives
Opera
Makes
Noses
Riveted
Better
Glass
Reassures
Hard
Glasses
Operas
People
Famous
Infamous

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President Bush was once asked which Presidential speech he admired most. He replied that it was the one Teddy Roosevelt had in his pocket that had helped cushion the blow of a would-be assassin's bullet.
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It is men's worst fear, personally and professionally, that women will pin the sin on them.
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The Mormons even baptized Anne Frank. It took Ernest Michel, then chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, three years to get Mormons to agree to stop proxy-baptizing Holocaust victims.
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Perpetual optimism is annoying. It is a sign that you are not paying attention.
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And as far as doing God's work, I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple.
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Digital platforms are worthless without content. They're shiny sacks with bells and whistles, but without content, they're empty sacks. It is not about pixels versus print. It is not about how you're reading. It is about what you're reading.
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Settling is about not embracing what is best for you and accepting what you really don't want. When you settle, you accept less than you deserve. Settling becomes a habit and a way of life, but it doesn't have to be. According to Maureen Dowd, The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for
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My eating habits were so bad for many years that I didn't actually know the intricacies of making a salad.
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The Obamas, especially Michelle, have radiated the sense that Americans do not appreciate what they sacrifice by living in a gilded cage. They've forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics: No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House.
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A friendship between reporter and source lasts only until it is profitable for one to betray the other.
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Are women necessary? Not with Ava around
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It takes a lot of adrenaline and fear to make me actually write.
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The idea of American exceptionalism doesn't extend to Americans being exceptional.
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The Clintons want to do big worthy things, but they also want to squeeze money from rich people wherever they live on planet Earth, insatiably gobbling up cash for politics and charity and themselves from the same incestuous swirl.
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Zingers should glow with intelligence as well as drip with contempt.
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Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve.
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The insane have achieved political respectability while the sane act too good for it all. The irrational celebrate while the rational act bored and above-it-all.
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I think even the Hollywood money people are saying they've got to get the party back from the Clinton wing. They can't, you know, keep nominating these Northeast liberals. They have to look for people who can win.
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IT is an astonishing thing that historians will look back and puzzle over, that in the 21st century, American women were such hunted creatures. Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns.
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