Molly Ivins

The Kurds will not be allowed to have an independent country because Turkey wouldn't stand for it; they have their own Kurdish population.

In order to understand why George W. Bush doesn't get it, you have to take several strands of common Texas attitude, then add an impressive degree of class-based obliviousness. What you end up with is a guy who sees himself as a perfectly nice fellow - and who is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people.

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

I spent my girlhood as a Clydesdale among thoroughbreds.

I spend most of my life feeling like I've been shot out of a cannon.

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

People in Midland are real nice folks: I can't prove that with statistics, but I know West Texas, and it's just a fact.

It's one thing to recognize that the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing like a cancer; it's another thing to come up with useful solutions.

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

When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel - it's vulgar.

The extent to which not just state legislatures but the Congress of the United States are now run by large corporate special interests is beyond mere recognition as fact. The takeover is complete.

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

I am one of those people who are out of touch with their emotions. I tend to treat my emotions like unpleasant relatives - a long-distance call once or twice or year is more than enough. If I got in touch with them, they might come to stay.

Conservatives, in general, are anti-immigrant for the same reasons they have always been anti-immigrant - a proud tradition in our nation of immigrants going back to the days of the Founders, when Ben Franklin thought we were going to be overrun by Germans. But Business likes illegal workers.

All my life, I've been sort of a professional optimist, full of good cheer about matters political and journalistic. I always thought I'd get older and become an unnaturally cheerful old fart. But it's not happening.

I really do think we're going through a period of concentration of ownership of media, and we're starting to see the effects at the editorial level, and it's all bad. This increased pressure for profits every quarter, smaller news hole, less coverage of important stuff - the extent that it's become one giant infotainment industry.

The most unusual thing about Clinton as a pol is that he listens. Listens and remembers. If he does dance with them that brung him, not them that gave him big money, we will have a populist on our hands.

Old-fashioned anti-immigrant prejudice always brings out some old-fashioned racists.

Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.

Rush Limbaugh's pathetic abuse of logic, his absurd pomposity, his relentless self-promotion, his ridiculous ego - now those, friends, are appropriate targets for satire.

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?

I want to point out, there are a lot of politicians who enjoy the political end of politics, but they're not interested in governance. And then, there are some that are really interested in governance and are just terrible at politics.

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.

If Bush does make it to the White House, he and Laura should have Ken Starr over for dinner.

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.

For years, I have been trying to persuade people that George W. Bush, although no Einstein, is not stupid.

Guns do kill. Unlike cars, that is all they do.

I've thought for years that newspapers should all be owned by nonprofits.

Its hard to argue against cynics they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.

Don't get me started about the media double standard.

Laws were changed and regulations repealed until an Enron can set sail without responsibility, supervision, or accountability.

Fourteen-year-old boys are not part of a well-regulated militia. Members of wacky religious cults are not part of a well-regulated militia. Permitting unregulated citizens to have guns is destroying the security of this free state.

I had sort of given up on conventional journalism. I found it far too restrictive.

We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.

There was really quite a remarkable level of sexism on newspapers when I started.

It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there.

I saw a shrink because I though I suffered from fear of success.

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

There is never anyone quite so wonderful as the people who were seniors when you were a freshman.

I worked through cancer twice. I probably worked through it too much the last time. This time, I found myself saying, 'Well, I don't feel well. I think I'll take the day off.' I think I did that even a little bit more than I needed to.

I have long argued that no one should be allowed to write opinion without spending years as a reporter - nothing like interviewing all four eyewitnesses to an automobile accident and then trying to write an accurate account of what happened.

There's been a lot of experience with torture in history. It doesn't work.

The only reason to have a positive mental attitude is that it makes life better. It doesn't cure cancer.

Am I the only person covering politics who ever noticed that Newt Gingrich is actually a nincompoop?

I don't have any children, so I've decided to claim all the future freedom-fighters and hell-raisers as my kin.

What I've been telling people is that the doctors are gaining on cancer very rapidly. It's almost become a chronic disease, like diabetes - something you can treat. It doesn't go away, and you're not well in the sense of being over it, but you go on and live your life.

The Federal Reserve system obviously doesn't work anymore - they keep lowering the federal discount rate, and all that happens is that the banks are making a fortune, and the old folks' CDs are getting chewed up.

Even after four years in office, George W. Bush's record on women doesn't leap out at you. It's composed almost entirely of little things, small enough to fly well under the media's radar screen, so few of us have any sense of their cumulative impact.

I've always had trouble with male authority figures because my father was such a martinet.

One thing I have learned from Johnny Faulk, Texas, and life, is that since you don't always win, you got to learn to enjoy just fightin' the good fight.

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

Even for southerners, Arkansans are amazingly friendly and extend hospitality to all strangers with astonishing openness. You couldn't find a pretension in that state if you hunted from Jonesboro to El Dorado.

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

The trouble with capitalism as a system is that only those who have or can get capital can make it work for them, and that leaves out damn near all of us.

'Get along, go along' is not an inspirational philosophy, and only God knows how much moral cowardice it has covered up over the years. Serve your time, collect your chits, and cash 'em in for your home state? No, I'd say we could ask for more than that from our senators.

I couldn't find any way to tell the truth in a regular newspaper.

Some days, I'd feel better with Punxsutawney Phil in the Oval Office - at least he doesn't lie about the weather.

To mistake Midland for the volk heartland is the West Texas equivalent of assuming that Greenwich, Connecticut, is Levittown.

There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

I never saw anything funnier than Texas politics.

Laura Bush, it seems, is used to cast a softer light on her husband, who then proceeds to reverse whatever she's just promised.

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.

In all my fantasies, I always assumed I would get married and have six children along the way with the greatest of ease.

I'm sorry to say cancer can kill you, but it doesn't make you a better person.

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

Jimmy Carter was unquestionably the most moral president of my lifetime, but he wasn't much of a president.

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

I'd worked for the 'Dallas Times Herald' for ten years, and its death was a kick in the gut the like of which I cannot recall ever having experienced.

One of the more urp-making habits of media mavens is presuming to speak for the American people, as in 'The American people won't stand for this!'

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

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.

One of the few things I like about Bill Clinton is that he has very good manners. If his momma were still alive, I would congratulate her.

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.

The Internet goes doot-doot-doot - it goes sideways. There's nothing hierarchical about it. And the best thing about it is also the worst thing about it, which is there are no gatekeepers on the Internet. Consequently, there's a whole lot of bad information on the Internet. But I think that sorts itself out over time.

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

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

Anyone who watched George W. and Karl Rove while the former was governor of Texas will recognize a familiar pattern. Like much of Bush's social policy - from faith-based social services to railing against gay marriage - women's issues are one of the bones they've decided they can throw to the Christian right.

Rove, of course, is an exceptionally good, exceptionally skillful campaign guy, and Bush himself is really gifted at the political end of politics. But he's always been, as he says, misunderestimated.

In truth, there is no rational argument for guns in this society. This is no longer a frontier nation in which people hunt their own food. It is a crowded, overwhelmingly urban country in which letting people have access to guns is a continuing disaster.

Those who imagine polygamy to be handy cover for promiscuity are apparently off the mark. If polygamists share one quality, it is that, polygamy aside, they are extraordinarily strait-laced.

One nice thing about the benefit of long experience with la frontera is that we in Texas don't have to run around getting all hysterical about immigrants. The border is porous. When you want cheap labor, you open it up; when you don't, you shut it down. It works to our benefit - it always has.

I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

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

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

I intensely covered Bush when he was Governor of Texas.

It really is possible to disagree with someone's policies without hating them. Grown-ups can do that.

There is more hooey spread about the Second Amendment. It says quite clearly that guns are for those who form part of a well-regulated militia, i.e., the armed forces including the National Guard. The reasons for keeping them away from everyone else get clearer by the day.

As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic shih tzus in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.

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.

From orphanages to space colonies, it was all shallow but endearingly enthusiastic futurism. Gingrich was the kind of person who read a book or two on something and would then be quite afire as to how this was going to fit into some shining future.

All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.

One of the things I said was that I had been in great hopes that I would become a better person as a result of confronting my own mortality, but it actually never happened. I didn't become a better person.

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.

Anyone who has ever spent time listening to a legislature knows the astonishing speed at which all presiding officers and reading clerks can spit out the formulaic incantations of parliamentary procedure.

I only aim at the powerful.

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

Right before the Bush inauguration, many women were greatly reassured when Laura said of Roe v. Wade on the 'Today' show, 'No, I don't think it should be overturned.' Three days later, her husband reimposed the 'global gag rule' on groups abroad that receive U.S. funding for family planning.

The uproar of the late '60s - the antiwar movement, black riots, angry women. It was a wonderful time.

New York is just as provincial as anyone else.

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