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

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

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.

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.

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

I have known George W. Bush slightly since we were both in high school, and I studied him closely as governor. He is neither mean nor stupid. What we have here is a man shaped by three intertwining strands of Texas culture, combined with huge blinkers of class. The three Texas themes are religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo.

It is the stories we don't get, the ones we miss, pass over, fail to recognize, don't pick up on, that will send us to hell.

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.

It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

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.

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.

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

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

The idols of one's adolescence tend to endure - you never forget how you worshipped them.

Good thing we've still got politics in Texas - finest form of free entertainment ever invented.

If you grew up white before the civil rights movement anywhere in the South, all grown-ups lied. They'd tell you stuff like, 'Don't drink out of the colored fountain, dear, it's dirty.' In the white part of town, the white fountain was always covered with chewing gum and the marks of grubby kids' paws, and the colored fountain was always clean.

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

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

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?

Havin' fun while freedom fightin' must be one of those lunatic Texas traits we get from the water - which is known to have lithium in it - because it goes all the way back to Sam Houston, surely the most lovable, the most human, and the funniest of all the great men this country has ever produced.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The greatest moral leader of my lifetime was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose private life does not bear close examination.

Here's the deal on Texas. It's big. So big, there's about five distinct and different places here, separated from one another geologically, topographically, botanically, ethnically, culturally, and climatically.

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

And the funny thing is, I've always been an optimist - it's practically a congenital disorder with me.

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

The danger of the blogosphere is reading only those you agree with. While there are right-wing blogs that are entertaining freak shows, it's hard to find substantial journalism there.

Truth is, I've spent much of my life trying, unsuccessfully, to explode the myths about Texas.

The reason I take Rush Limbaugh seriously is not because he's offensive or right-wing, but because he is one of the few people addressing a large group of disaffected people in this country. And despite his frequent denials, Limbaugh does indeed have a somewhat cult-like effect on his ditto heads.

I really think the single most important thing to remember about trying to fix the schools is that there is no such thing as an instant result.

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.

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.

Should a girl like me, in whom the milk of human kindness flows copiously for everyone, from protein-shy Hottentots to the glandular obese, actually aim a few swift boots at the prone form of Sen. Phil Gramm? Nah. But it's tempting.

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.

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

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

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

If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to own the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.