100+ Gail Collins Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

source: - "Advocates: Point and Counterpoint, Laurence Tribe and Robert Bork Debate the Framers' Spacious Terms". Miriam Bensimhorn, Life Magazine (Special Issue), Fall 1991.

Topics: Dream, Nsa, Rifles, Files

In college, the guys aren't worrying about whether they'll be able to pursue their career dreams and still have kids.

Topics: Dream, Kids, College

Illegal immigration can never be completely stopped, no matter how high the wall or how many patrol agents you have watching it.

Topics: Wall, Immigration, Agents

Downplaying their faults is pretty much the point of campaigns. But we do count on them living with the constant terror of public rejection.

Topics: Rejection, Campaigns, Faults

Back in the '70s when my friends in California were at Berkeley, in-state tuition was around $700 a year.

Topics: Years, California, Tuition, Berkeley

During the Obama years, the Republicans have done an unprecedented amount of stonewalling on cabinet-and-below appointees. I would also argue that their war on judicial nominees has been way beyond what went before. Really, if the president nominated God to serve on the D.C. Court of Appeals, Mitch McConnell would threaten a filibuster.

Topics: War, Years, President, Filibuster, Unprecedented

When people say this isn't the America they grew up in, they're right. Nobody gets to grow old in the America they grew up in.

source: - "What the Tea Party Really Wants". Interview with David Brooks, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. September 1, 2010.

Topics: America, People, Grew Up

As long as we decline to allow sick, uninsured people to just lie down and die on the side of the road, everybody has to have insurance for the health care system to work sanely.

Topics: Lying, Long, People

The Tea Party people say they're angry about socialism, but maybe they're really angry about capitalism. If there's a sense of being looked down upon, it's that sense of failure that's built into a system that assures everyone they can make it to the top, but then reserves the top for only a tiny fraction of the strivers.

Topics: Party, People, Tea, Strivers, Tea Party

Non-crazy gun advocates - the ones who aren't stockpiling in preparation for a zombie invasion - don't like the idea of expanding background checks because they think it'll be a lot more paperwork. And it probably would make it more difficult to sell guns at, say, a flea market.

Topics: Crazy, Thinking, Gun, Background Checks, Flea Markets

You hear younger women say, 'I don't believe I'm a feminist. I believe women should have equal right and I believe in fighting for the rights of other women, but I'm certainly not a feminist. No, no, not that!' It's just a word. If you called it 'Fred' would it be better?

Topics: Believe, Fighting, Rights

Any time you write history, you insert your opinion. You pick and choose what you are going to write about. I feel really happy not inserting myself. I spend too much of my life inserting myself. It's just great to let other people carry the narrative.

Topics: Writing, People, Narrative

At the beginning of his administration, Obama homed right in on Medicare, which he wanted to fix by reducing the overall cost of health care in this country. He risked everything - some would claim he lost everything - by being so single-minded.

Topics: Country, Administration, Cost

Billy Jean King could not get credit when her husband was in law school and she was winning the Wimbledon, because he had to sign the cards. You know, you had these cases in the '70s of women who were mayors who couldn't get credit unless their husbands signed for them.

Topics: Kings, Husband, School, Law School

Bin Laden wasn't all that central to the terrorist network any more, but taking him down created a kind of national catharsis. It's been a really, really long time since we had something to celebrate that didn't involve a sports team. I'd rather it had been a non-death-related occasion, but we'll take what we can get.

Topics: Sports, Team, Long, Really Long

Can I say that I think it should be against the law for one state to use taxpayer money to try to bribe businesses in another state to move? Which then causes the target state to use taxpayer dollars to try to bribe the businesses to stay.

Topics: Moving, Thinking, Law

Certainly Nancy Reagan had an extraordinary effect on her husband. I'm truly not sure that, say, Laura Bush had that much effect on the Bush administration. She certainly, you know, seems to be a nice person who I think the public likes. But I can't really put my finger on any huge impact she's had.

Topics: Husband, Nice, Thinking

Despite my excellent mood, I don't have any sympathy for Romney. If he'd been a good candidate he wouldn't have had a different campaign for every month on the calendar.

Topics: Different, Campaigns, Calendars

You can hit as many revolutions as you want, but women are always going to wear uncomfortable shoes that look good.

Topics: Shoes, Looks, Want

Sarah Palin is treated like a bimbo sometimes, but she has never given the public the respect they deserve. She acts silly and doesn't know stuff. She didn't even finish her term.

Topics: Silly, Stuff, Sometimes

You know, I really miss sex scandals. They're generally colorful. They almost never mean anything over the long run. And while they're going on, the people who actually keep the government running are let alone to go about their business. Good old sex scandals.

Topics: Running, Sex, Mean, Colorful

Nobody gets to grow old in the America they grew up in.

Topics: America, Grew Up, Grew

DePaulo says that 'singlism' -- a term she coined and for which we are prepared to forgive her -- is not just aimed at unmarried women.

Topics: Forgiving, Term, Prepared, Unmarried, Married Women

Unfortunately, he was about as deep as a melted ice cube.

Topics: Funny, Ice, Cubes

It's possible that you have been told a time or 10 that you don't appreciate how tough your elders had it. It's true that, if you had been coming of age back in, say, 1960, you would probably be feeling more restricted, if only because you were doomed to spend your days in a skirt, nylon stockings and girdle.

Topics: Appreciate, Feelings, Age, Stockings, Girdles

Now my poor hometown is being castigated as the center of an IRS scandal. Humble workers at the Cincinnati office targeted Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations for special scrutiny when those groups applied for tax-exempt status. There's no conceivable excuse for that. It was deeply, deeply wrong.

Topics: Party, Humble, Organization

My only thought about Margaret Thatcher is the same one I had about Ronald Reagan. I hated a lot of what they did, but once in a while a country just needs a change.

Topics: Country, Needs, Need A Change

Natural Texas politicians make terrible, terrible presidential candidates. Phil Gramm, I remember the 'Phil Gramm for President' campaign. I thought that was the worst thing in the history of the world, but Rick Perry was possibly worse.

Topics: Texas, Presidential, Campaigns

If you live in a place that you perceive to be a crowded place, you appreciate government; you see it as this thing that protects you against crime, that keeps order, that makes sure that nobody puts a massage parlor next to your house, that keeps other people's dogs from pooping on the sidewalk.

Topics: Dog, Government, Order, Crowded, Crowded Places

Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.

Topics: Home, Writing, Night, Inner Feelings

One line I'd draw would be on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. It sounds fair, since people are living longer. But it isn't. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65. And they'll get penalized with lower benefits.

Topics: People, Age, Lines, Eligibility

One very clear memory I have of college is that I never learned anything in the big lectures. I have a feeling I'd have done even worse if they'd been on a laptop screen.

Topics: Memories, College, Feelings

Personally, I'd be really glad to have a national conversation about whether to outlaw most forms of birth control. For once, the kids and their grandparents would find themselves on the same side.

source: - "Apocalypse Iowa". Interview with David Brooks and Gail Collins, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. January 04, 2012.

Topics: Kids, Grandparent, Sides

Sarah Palin is an heir to the women's movement. She has not been constrained by gender. At no point in her life has she thought, 'I can't do that because I'm a woman.'

Topics: Movement, Heirs, Gender

I'm being driven crazy by people who are obsessed with limiting the scope of government, but feel perfectly free to demand that government get involved in women's most personal choices.

source: - "Who Decided That This Election Should Be About Sex?". Interview with David Brooks and Gail Collins, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. February 22, 2012.

Topics: Crazy, Government, People, Personal Choice

Take Hispanic voters. They favor Democrats because they like the party's programs, from health care reform to government spending on education. It's not because the Republicans don't have a big enough Office of Hispanic Outreach.

Topics: Party, Government, Office, Health Care Reform

Texas has no income tax, which is a big draw for corporate executives who do business there. But it's hardly tax-free. The property taxes are high for a Southern state. The sales taxes are high. One study found that the bottom 20 percent of the Texas population pays 12 percent of its income in state and local taxes.

Topics: Texas, Southern, Population, Sales Tax, Property Taxes

The high point was that the people are really nice - despite the crazy politics - and I loved being there. The hardest part was knowing some of the things I was probably going to write about Texas would make those nice people very unhappy.

Topics: Crazy, Nice, Writing, High Points

I used to like John McCain, too, but I must admit that was because he was bucking his party to do things I agreed with. I would not have had that reaction if, say, Bernie Sanders decided to rebel out of principle and support privatizing Social Security.

Topics: Party, Support, Principles, Mccain

I used to have a sort of soft spot for Huckabee. He seemed to have a genuinely saintly streak, which caused him to defend illegal immigrants and give pardons to criminals who were perhaps a little less rehabilitated than he had imagined.

Topics: Giving, Criminals, Littles

The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.

Topics: War, Struggle, Fighting

I would walk a thousand miles To feel your hugs and see your smiles But then one day we had to part The hardest day, it broke my heart But I still see you every day Because in my heart and mind you stay.

Topics: Sympathy, Heart, Hug

First they gerrymander us into one-party fiefs. Then they tell us they only care about the swing districts. Then they complain about voter apathy.

Topics: Party, Swings, Political

Certainly people in empty places feel they have the right to do what they want to their property and don't necessarily see the effect of their pollution or pesticides on others. But Texans have an appreciation for water problems and are very aware of the droughts.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Appreciation, People, Water, Empty Places

At first, I felt bad judging an entire state by one county political official, but then I found out Morrison had also helped screen public school textbooks, a topic which is another chapter in my book. The Alamo is managed by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, a group whose members can claim a relative who was living in Texas during the revolution. The fight over mismanagement of the Alamo has been going on for years.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Daughter, Book, School, Mismanagement, Alamo

The idea that if you don’t like how things are going, you can just leave is so engrained in Texas, the secession movement is no surprise.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Texas, Ideas, Movement, Secession

[Ella Baker]'s second defining characteristic was her dislike of top-down leadership... 'She felt leaders were not appointed but the rose up. Someone will rise. Someone will emerge'. It was an attitude Baker shared with some of the older women in the movement.

Topics: Attitude, Top Down, Rose, Older Women

If Christmas is for families, what do you do when there are families scattered all over the country? I am pretty sure God wants to make sure I touch all the bases, even if I spend his actual birthday with Delta Airlines.

source: - "The True Meaning of Christmas". Conversation, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com. December 22, 2010.

Topics: Country, Want, Airline, Delta, I Am Pretty

This is America, and we don't restrict our battles over people's sex lives to 11 months a year

Topics: Sex, Years, America

The G.O.P. is desperately seeking someone who can save the party from the fate of nominating Mitt Romney. But every time a non-Mitt throws his hat in the ring, the hat explodes.

Topics: Party, Fate, Hats, Nominating

It is more a mentality than the actual places people live, as Jefferson and Hamilton would argue about - city versus country. For example, someone could have an empty place mentality yet be living in a condo in Boca Raton.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Country, Cities, People, Empty Places, Hamilton

Of course, Texas is so huge it really is empty places; people can easily drive an hour and a half to work every day, so even if they're actually living in the suburbs, it sure feels as if they're in a remote location.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Texas, People, Empty Places, Actually Living

I write about how in Midland, the mayor instituted water conservation measures like restrictions on car washing. He made a point though that they were only "suggestions" and not government telling people what to do. But then his constituents got very ticked off at the sight of their neighbors breaking the rules and demanded that they be made into actual laws with penalties.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Writing, Government, Sight, Water Conservation

Lobbyists really are experts in their fields and know what they are talking about. That's why the government always listens to them as they tell the government what it's doing wrong and what it should be doing instead.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Government, Talking, Lobbyists

Over the long run, many of Perry's stances boil down to following the money.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Running, Long, Stance

Phil Gramm had a stump speech about how his mother's devotion kept him from being an academic failure in life. She got him into a special school that turned him around - under a government program for the children of deceased veterans. He was repeatedly asked at press conferences why he would then turn around and support draconian cuts in federal funding for education. He never had an answer.

source: - "Interview With Gail Collins: How Texas Hijacked the American Agenda". Interview with Martha Rosenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 14, 2012.

Topics: Mother, Children, School, Deceased, Draconian