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It's hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

Molly Ivins

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Molly Ivins
Age: 62 †
Born: 1944
Born: August 30
Died: 2007
Died: January 31
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Monterey
California
Arguing
Evidence
Cynics
Side
Optimists
Sides
Cynic
Sound
Optimist
Hard
Cynicism
Much
Argue
Always
Smarter

More quotes by Molly Ivins

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Although a life-long fashion dropout, I have absorbed enough by reading Harper's Bazaar while waiting at the dentist's to have grasped that the purpose of fashion is to make A Statement. My own modest Statement, discerned by true cognoscenti, is, Woman Who Wears Clothes So She Won't Be Naked.
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What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.
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What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.
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the more a body tries to explode all the foolish myths that have grown up about Texas by telling the truth, the more a body will wind up adding to the mythology.
Molly Ivins
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Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. 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.
Molly Ivins
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Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.
Molly Ivins
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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.
Molly Ivins
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It's like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you're wrong.
Molly Ivins
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The Founders were right all along, but the results are a lot funnier than they intended.
Molly Ivins
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It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.
Molly Ivins
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Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences.
Molly Ivins
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Sometimes I think Texas exists as a reality check for those who might wander too far toward the precious.
Molly Ivins
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Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.
Molly Ivins
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When Michael Jackson, a poor black boy who grew up to be a rich, white woman, married Elvis Presley's daughter the Scientologist. Makes you proud to be an American, dudn't it?
Molly Ivins
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Texas is not a civilized place. Texans shoot one another a lot. They also knife, razor, and stomp one another to death with some frequency. And they fight in bars all the time.
Molly Ivins
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Nice is a pallid virtue. Not like honesty or courage or perseverance. On the other hand, in a nation notably lacking in civility, there is much to be said for nice.
Molly Ivins
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The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
Molly Ivins
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You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.
Molly Ivins
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We've had trickle down economics in the country for ten years now, and most of us aren't even damp yet.
Molly Ivins
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Many a time freedom has been rolled back - and always for the same sorry reason: fear.
Molly Ivins