- Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.

- Let me say for the umpteenth time, George W. is not a stupid man. The IQ of his gut, however, is open to debate. In Texas, his gut led him to believe the death penalty has a deterrent effect, even though he acknowledged there was no evidence to support his gut's feeling. When his gut, or something, causes him to announce that he does not believe in global warming -- as though it were a theological proposition -- we once again find his gut ruling that evidence is irrelevant.

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

- Everyone knows the man has no clue, but no one there has the courage to say it. I mean, good gawd, the man is as he always has been: barely adequate. [on George W. Bush]

- Last week, I began a sentence by saying, "If Bush had any imagination ..." and then I hit myself. Silly me.

 • [On then-candidate George W. Bush, in a 2000 book on his "short but happy political life"] If, at the end of this short book, you find W. Bush's political resume a little light, don't blame us. There's really not much there. We have been looking for six years.

- [Molly Ivins quotes George W. Bush in one of his "Bushisms"] "What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position."

- [On George W. Bush] If you think his daddy had trouble with "the vision thing," wait till you meet this one.

- [On then-President George H. W. Bush] Personally, I think he's further evidence that the Great Scriptwriter in the sky has an overdeveloped sense of irony.

 

- I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.

- If he gets even more sedate, we will have to water him twice a week. [about then-President Ronald Reagan]

- If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want drillin' rights on that man's head. [on Dick Armey]

- She bellies up to the gourmet cracker-barrel and delivers laid-back wisdom with the serenity of a down-home Buddha who has discovered that stool softeners really work. [Florence King on Molly]

- When Ivins writes, there has to be a jalapeno in every line. [critic James Thurman on Ivins]

-On James M. Collins, US Representative, R-Dallas, "If his IQ slips any lower we'll have to water him twice a day." This quotation engendered substantial controversy, with calls and letters pouring into her newspaper, the Dallas Times Herald. The newspaper turned the controversy into a publicity campaign, with billboards all over the city asking, "Molly Ivins can't say that…can she?"—which she employed as the title for her first book.

- You want moral leadership? Try the clergy. It's their job.

A few years before Billie Carr died this September at age 74, a friend called to ask how she was doing. "Well," she said, "They just impeached my boy up in Washington, there's not a Democrat left in statewide office in Texas, the Republicans have taken every judgeship in Harris County, and yesterday I found out I have cancer."

Pause.

"I think I'll go out and get a pregnancy test because with my luck, it'll come back positive."

 

- It's a low-tax, low-service state--so shoot us. The only depressing part is that, unlike Mississippi, we can afford to do better. We just don't.

 

-"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. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."—quoted by John Nichols for The Nation