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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
Work
Nerves
Think
Tough
Thinking
Black
Peel
Write
Emma
Need
Column
Needs
Columns
Writing
Nerve
Trying
Leather

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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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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A friendship between reporter and source lasts only until it is profitable for one to betray the other.
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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 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 minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
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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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Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful, and famous more authority than they deserve.
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Good and evil are not like the Redskins and the Cowboys.
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If wit is the most sophisticated form of humor, pranks are the most juvenile.
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Personally, I've decided to stop evolving.
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The idea of American exceptionalism doesn't extend to Americans being exceptional.
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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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I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.
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Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.
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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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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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Women have become so obsessed with not withering, they've forgotten that there are infinite ways to be beautiful.
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Zingers should glow with intelligence as well as drip with contempt.
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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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