MOLLY IVINS 1944-2007

Molly Ivins was a close friend of my wife's family. She and my father-in-law were deskmates at Columbia journalism school about a thousand years ago and remained close ever since. She had a huge influence on both Kate and her sister, Molly. (Whose name is no coincidence)

I had the pleasure of meeting her a couple years ago when she was on a book tour that came through New York in support of "Bushwacked: Life in George W. Bush's America". She took Kate and me out to breakfast. I found her to be truly warm, charming, extraordinarily quick and absolutely hysterical.

She's also fantastically quotable. Below is a picture of Kate and Molly after our breakfast at the Plaza followed by some selected quotes from over the years. She was a real tiger. An outspoken liberal firebrand and fighter of the good fight. She will be greatly missed...


Some gems from Molly Ivins...

• The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.

• What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

• 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.

• Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.

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

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

• There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do.

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

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

• 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. Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for.

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

• I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

• I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

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