Top 100 Molly Ivins Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Conservatives have been mad at the Supreme Court since it decided to desegregate the schools in 1954 and seen fit to blame the federal bench for everything that has happened since then that they don’t like.”

— Molly Ivins

52. “The only problem was, the founders left a lot of people out of the Constitution. They left out poor people and black people and female people. 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. And it still goes on today.”

— Molly Ivins

53. “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

54. “I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.”

— Molly Ivins

55. “Texas liberals are the camels of good news. We can cross entire deserts between oases.”

— Molly Ivins

56. “We’ve had trickle down economics in the country for ten years now, and most of us aren’t even damp yet.”

— Molly Ivins

57. “He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.”

— Molly Ivins

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

— Molly Ivins

59. “If his IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”

— Molly Ivins

60. “Mostly, Texas women are tough in some very fundamental ways. Not unfeminine, nor necessarily unladylike, just tough!”

— Molly Ivins

61. “So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds...”

— Molly Ivins

62. “I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.”

— Molly Ivins

63. “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

64. “Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant – it tends to get worse.”

— Molly Ivins

65. “Carl Parker observes, if you took all the fools out of the Lege, it wouldn’t be a representative body anymore.”

— Molly Ivins

66. “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

67. “All right, all right, so I love Lubbock. I never claimed to have exquisite taste. I’ll be there with the diehards to the end, trying to explain, “No, this is a griddle with some Monopoly houses on it: this is Lubbock.” Still, the life of all us Lubbock-lovers would be a lot easier if the Chamber of Commerce hadn’t adopted the slogan “Keep Lubbock Beautiful.” Keep?”

— Molly Ivins

68. “Democracy requires a certain relish for confusion.”

— Molly Ivins

69. “I know vegetarians don’t like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that’s good for nothing but grazing.”

— Molly Ivins

70. “Sometimes I think Texas exists as a reality check for those who might wander too far toward the precious.”

— Molly Ivins

71. “Behind a smoke screen of high-profile female appointees and soothing slogans, George W. Bush is waging war on women.”

— Molly Ivins

72. “Oh, hell, I can’t go on a spiritual journey – I’m constipated.”

— Molly Ivins

73. “Good thing we’ve still got politics in Texas – finest form of free entertainment ever invented.”

— Molly Ivins

74. “You look at the large problems that we face – that would be overpopulation, water shortages, global warming and AIDS, I suppose – all of that needs international cooperation to be solved.”

— Molly Ivins

75. “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

76. “Humanism is not alive and well in Texas. Different colors and types of Texans do not like one another, nor do they pretend to.”

— Molly Ivins

77. “With politicians, artful evasion is always preferable to the outright lie.”

— Molly Ivins

78. “One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”

— Molly Ivins

79. “Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don’t much care for.”

— Molly Ivins

80. “If you ever get to the place where injustice doesn’t bother you, you’re dead.”

— Molly Ivins

81. “The myth of the inevitability of economic globalization is based largely on the work of Milton Friedman, and easily the most underreported story of our time is that the current economy proves Friedman flatly wrong.”

— Molly Ivins

82. “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

83. “Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.”

— Molly Ivins

84. “Manners are just a formal expression of how you treat people.”

— Molly Ivins

85. “I often plagiarize from myself. I like to think of this as ecological journalism: I recycle.”

— Molly Ivins

86. “Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”

— Molly Ivins

87. “The odd thing about these television discussions designed to “get all sides of the issue” is that they do not feature a spectrum of people with different views on reality: Rather, they frequently give us a face-off between those who see reality and those who have missed it entirely. In the name of objectivity, we are getting fantasy-land.”

— Molly Ivins

88. “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

89. “Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce.”

— Molly Ivins

90. “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

91. “The Founders were right all along, but the results are a lot funnier than they intended.”

— Molly Ivins

92. “Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.”

— Molly Ivins

93. “Reading Ehrenreich is good for the soul.”

— Molly Ivins

94. “I never saw anything funnier than Texas politics.”

— Molly Ivins

95. “California is now close to spending more on prisons than it does on higher education – surely the death warrant of a civilization.”

— Molly Ivins

96. “In the first place, any group of folks willing to make asses of themselves in pursuit of a good time should be commended and encouraged: The spirit of human frolic needs all the help it can get.”

— Molly Ivins

97. “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

98. “He inspired all around him with awe at his work habits: According to several Reagan aides, in the wake of the Iran-contra scandal, there was serious talk of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office because he wouldn’t come to work – all he wanted to do was watch movies and television.”

— Molly Ivins

99. “On a personal note: I have contracted an outstanding case of breast cancer, from which I intend to recover. I don’t need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done.”

— Molly Ivins

100. “The advantage of being able to identify sin is that you can go out and do it, and enjoy it.”

— Molly Ivins