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When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit.

Maureen Dowd

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Maureen Dowd
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: January 14
Columnist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Maureen Brigid Dowd
Thinking
Black
Peel
Write
Emma
Need
Column
Needs
Columns
Writing
Nerve
Trying
Leather
Work
Nerves
Think
Tough

More quotes by Maureen Dowd

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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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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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Good and evil are not like the Redskins and the Cowboys.
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Even when conservatives have all the marbles, they still act as if they're under siege. Now that they are under siege, it is no time for them to act as if they're losing their marbles.
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I feel like I owe it to the readers to try to pull back the veil and give them the honest version of what's going on. But it's not more fun. If Obama, as he does sometimes already, gets a little snippy with me about something I've written, you're thinking, 'Oh God, the president of the United States is already annoyed with me.'
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F.D.R. achieved greatness not by means of imposing his temperament and intellect on the world but by reacting to what the world threw at him.
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The Republicans, with their crazed Reagan fixation, are a last-gasp party, living posthumously, fighting battles on sex, race, immigration and public education long ago won by the other side. They're trying to roll back the clock, but time is passing them by.
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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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I don't understand men. I don't even understand what I don't understand about men.
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Reagan didn't socialize with the press. He spent his evenings with Nancy, watching TV with dinner trays. But he knew that to transcend, you can't condescend.
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Journalism, spooked by rumors of its own obsolescence, has stopped believing in itself. Groans of doom alternate with panicked happy talk.
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If wit is the most sophisticated form of humor, pranks are the most juvenile.
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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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Perpetual optimism is annoying. It is a sign that you are not paying attention.
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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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Zingers should glow with intelligence as well as drip with contempt.
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It takes a lot of adrenaline and fear to make me actually write.
Maureen Dowd
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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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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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The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
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