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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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Molly Ivins
Age: 62 †
Born: 1944
Born: August 30
Died: 2007
Died: January 31
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
Monterey
California
Virtue
Notably
Hand
Niceness
Nice
Civility
Nations
Lacking
Hands
Perseverance
Much
Honesty
Like
Courage
Nation
Pallid

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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Sit up, join up, get on line, get in touch, find out who's raising hell and join them. No use waiting on a bunch of wussy politicians.
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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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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During a recent panel on the numerous failures of American journalism, I proposed that almost all stories about government should begin: “Look out! They're about to smack you around again!
Molly Ivins
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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.
Molly Ivins
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I think provincialism is an endemic characteristic with mankind, I think everybody everywhere is provincial, but it is particularly striking with Texans, and we tend to be very Texcentric.
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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Of course, it has never paid much.
Molly Ivins
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Mostly, Texas women are tough in some very fundamental ways. Not unfeminine, nor necessarily unladylike, just tough!
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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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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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.
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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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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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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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