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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
Always
Smarter
Arguing
Evidence
Cynics
Side
Optimists
Sides
Cynic
Sound
Optimist
Hard
Cynicism
Much
Argue

More quotes by Molly Ivins

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Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.
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Naturally, when it comes to voting, we in Texas are accustomed to discerning that fine hair’s-breadth worth of difference that makes one hopeless dipstick slightly less awful than the other. But it does raise the question: Why bother?
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Calling George Bush shallow is like calling a dwarf short.
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Behind a smoke screen of high-profile female appointees and soothing slogans, George W. Bush is waging war on women.
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My friend Mercedes Pena made me get in touch with my emotions just before I had a breast cut off. Just as I suspected, they were awful. How do you Latinas do this all the time in touch with your emotions? I asked her. That's why we take siestas, she replied.
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As I have pointed out time and again, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to send little kids to school than it is to let them grow up into young thugs who have to be sent to prison, not to mention the savings in the wear and tear on the nerves, property, and safety of the rest of the citizenry.
Molly Ivins
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Either we figure out how to keep corporate cash out of the political system or we lose the democracy.
Molly Ivins
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I used to go on college campuses 25 years ago and announce I was a feminist, and people thought it meant I believed in free love and was available for a quick hop in the sack. ... Now I go on college campuses and say I'm a feminist, and half of them think it means I'm a lesbian. How'd we get from there to here without passing Go?
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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I think most of us become nicer as we get older, less judgmental, less full of certitude life tends to knock a few corners of us as we go through. Cancer, divorce, teenagers, and other plagues make us give up on expecting ourselves - or life - to be perfect, which is a real relief.
Molly Ivins
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So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.
Molly Ivins
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As for George Bush of Kennebunkport, Maine- personally I think he's further evidence that the Great Scriptwriter in the Sky has an overdeveloped sense of irony.
Molly Ivins
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What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.
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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Most of us think of government as them. Yet government isn't Them: It's us.
Molly Ivins
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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.
Molly Ivins
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Many a time freedom has been rolled back - and always for the same sorry reason: fear.
Molly Ivins
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Whenever you hear a politician carry on about what a mess the schools are, be aware that you are looking at the culprit.
Molly Ivins
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The advantage of being able to identify sin is that you can go out and do it, and enjoy it.
Molly Ivins
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Conservatives are fond of pointing out there are problems in this world can't be solved by throwing money at them. There are even more that can't be solved by dropping bombs on them.
Molly Ivins