Molly Ivins Quotes

“Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.”

“I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel, it's vulgar.”

“Satire is a weapon, and it can be quite cruel.”

“There are two kinds of humour. One kind makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule.”

“We should all laugh more at our elected officials. It's good for us and good for them.”

“The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.”

“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.”

“Many a time freedom has been rolled back, and always for the same sorry reason: fear.”

“Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't 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.”

“The thing is this: you got to have fun while you're fightin' for freedom, 'cause you don't always win.”

“Freedom fighters don't always win, but they are always right.”

“Raise hell. I want y'all to get out there and raise hell about darn near everything. My word, there's a world out there that needs fixing. Get out there and get after it.”

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

“You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.”

“The stakes they play for in politics are paper and money. The chips they play with are your life.”

“We need to reform the political system, or we'll lose the democracy. I don't think it's that hard. It doesn't take rocket science.”

"Get along, go along" is not an inspirational philosophy, and only God knows how much moral cowardice it has covered up over the years.”

“The trouble with blaming powerless people is that although it's not nearly as scary as blaming the powerful, it does miss the point.”

“I've said it before: war brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.”

“If you grew up white before the civil rights movement anywhere in the South, all grown-ups lied. They'd tell you, "Don't drink out of the coloured fountain, dear, it's dirty." In the white part of town, the white fountain was always covered with chewing gum, and the coloured fountain was always clean.”

“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.”

“Good thing we've still got politics in Texas: finest form of free entertainment ever invented.”

“All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people.”

“In most legislatures, punctilious attention to correct usage is considered elitist. The word "government," for example, is normally pronounced "gummint."

“In Congress, there are some who are unashamed to aspire to eloquence, but the only state legislator I ever knew who would not join in the mispronunciation of a word for the sake of camaraderie was Barbara Jordan.”