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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

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As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.
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no one has ever accused Texas of being in the vanguard of social progress. This is the most macho state in the U.S. of A. By lore, legend, and fact, Texas is 'hell' on women and horses.
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If you ever get to the place where injustice doesn't bother you, you're dead.
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Most of us think of government as them. Yet government isn't Them: It's us.
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Reading Ehrenreich is good for the soul.
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Every two years, one of the most hotly contested elections in Texas is the poll taken among members of the capitol press corps to determine who are actually the ten stupidest members of the Legislature. Two years ago, there were thirty-seven official nominees and several write-ins.
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And the funny thing is, I've always been an optimist - it's practically a congenital disorder with me.
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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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I know: Guns Don't Kill People. But I suspect that they have something to do with it. If you point your finger at someone and say, Bang, bang, you're dead, not much actually happens.
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Some days, I'd feel better with Punxsutawney Phil in the Oval Office - at least he doesn't lie about the weather.
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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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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.
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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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Listen to the people who are talking about how to fix what's wrong, not the ones who just work people into a snit over the problems. Listen to the people who have ideas about how to fix things, not the ones who just blame others.
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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 thing is this: You got to have fun while you're fightin' for freedom, 'cause you don't always win.
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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I think of Texas as the laboratory for bad government.
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What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.
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Even I felt sorry for Richard Nixon when he left there's nothing you can do about being born liberal - fish gotta swim and hearts gotta bleed.
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