Molly Ivins Biography Quotes 11 Report mistakes

11 Quotes
Occup.	Journalist
From	USA
Born	August 30, 1944
Died	January 31, 2007 Austin, Texas, United States
Aged	62 years

Early Life and Education
Molly Ivins was born on August 30, 1944, in Monterey, California, and grew up in Houston, Texas. In a household known for high expectations, she became a lifelong observer of power, authority, and the ways ordinary people push back. Tall, sharp-witted, and quick with a joke, she gravitated toward debate, history, and language. Ivins attended St. John's School in Houston, then headed to Smith College, where she graduated in the mid-1960s. She continued her studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris and earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, grounding her irreverent voice in rigorous training.

Apprenticeship in Journalism
Ivins began reporting at the Minneapolis Tribune, where she covered the police beat and honed the craft of vivid, on-the-ground storytelling. The newsroom's daily fray suited her temperament: she learned to turn sparse facts into narratives that made public issues legible and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Even in these early days, she showed a knack for connecting political decisions to everyday lives, a skill that would define her columns for decades.

Texas Voice: The Texas Observer and the Lege
Ivins returned to Texas to work at The Texas Observer, a small, pugnacious magazine that became her spiritual home. Under the mentorship of founding editor Ronnie Dugger and in concert with editor and ally Kaye Northcott, she developed a voice that mixed populist indignation with comedic timing. Covering the Texas Legislature, "the Lege", as she loved to call it, she made the backrooms and brass of state politics intelligible to readers far beyond Austin. Her reporting took aim at pretension and abuse of power without losing sight of human quirk and error. The Observer years fixed her reputation as a Texas original whose humor carried a serious democratic purpose.

The New York Times and the Limits of Tone
Her rising profile took her to The New York Times, where she worked in several assignments, including the paper's Rocky Mountain bureau. The job broadened her perspective and deepened her reporting, but it also illuminated the limits of a voice that delighted readers while rattling gatekeepers. At the Times, stylistic constraint clashed with her flair for plain-spoken, sardonic prose. The experience sharpened her conviction that the best political writing sounds like real people talking, a lesson she brought back to Texas.

Return to Texas and Syndicated Stardom
Ivins returned to Texas to become a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, and after that paper closed, for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. From these perches she reached a national audience, her columns syndicated across the country. Writing from Austin, she delivered a steady flow of pungent observations on state and national politics. She took particular interest in Texas governors and legislators, elevating local stories into parables about money, power, and civic responsibility.

Books, Collaborations, and Public Life
Ivins gathered her columns in best-selling collections, including "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" and "Nothin' But Good Times Ahead", and later "You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You" and "Who Let the Dogs In?" Her partnership with journalist Lou Dubose produced two of her most widely read books, "Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush" and "Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America". These collaborations fused deep reporting with her trademark wit and helped define public debate during a polarized era. Beyond print, she spoke frequently on campuses and at civic forums, appearing on public radio and television to argue for civil liberties, government transparency, and old-fashioned muckraking.

Style, Influence, and Relationships
Ivins's voice, earthy, literate, and mischievous, made complicated policy matters feel familiar. She wielded humor as both a scalpel and a handshake, cutting through cant and inviting readers into a conversation. Friends and allies such as Ann Richards, the charismatic Texas governor, embodied the kind of politics Ivins celebrated: plain talk, social openness, and a fighting spirit. She also trained her gaze on figures she believed misused power, most notably George W. Bush, whom she famously dubbed "Shrub". However caustic her one-liners, her columns framed politics as a communal enterprise, insisting that citizens deserve both the facts and a good laugh. Colleagues from the Texas Observer days, including Ronnie Dugger and Kaye Northcott, remained touchstones, and her collaboration with Lou Dubose demonstrated her respect for teamwork in the service of public argument.

Illness and Final Years
Ivins was diagnosed with breast cancer in the late 1990s. She continued writing through treatments and recurrences, using her platform to urge persistence and humor in the face of frightening odds. The illness never softened her critique of official spin or her faith in citizen action; if anything, it intensified her urgency. She kept reporting and speaking from Austin, producing columns that mixed gallows humor with stubborn hope.

Death and Legacy
Molly Ivins died on January 31, 2007, in Austin, Texas. She left behind a body of work that remains a model for political commentary: skeptical without cynicism, populist without sentimentality, and consistently funny without losing moral bite. Her books and columns continue to circulate among readers looking for clarity about power and comfort in common sense. By wedding a reporter's discipline to a raconteur's gift, she proved that the public square still has room for plain talk and big laughs, and that democracy is better for both.

Our collection contains 11 quotes who is written by Molly, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Truth - Justice - Freedom - Sarcastic.

Other people realated to Molly: Jim Hightower (Activist)

Molly Ivins Famous Works