Maureen Dowd > Quotes

“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. ”
― Maureen Dowd

“Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they've never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military.”
― Maureen Dowd

“Settling is about not embracing what is best for you and accepting what you really don't want. When you settle, you accept less than you deserve. Settling becomes a habit and a way of life, but it doesn't have to be. According to Maureen Dowd, "The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Materialism has defeated feminism as well. In a sign of the times, Gloria Steinem was on the picket line when the first American DeBeers store opened on Fifth Avenue in June 2005, protesting the evictions of Bushmen in Botswana to make room for diamond miners and the charges that the company dealt in "blood diamonds" used to finance civil wars in Africa.
Her presence meant nothing to young Hollywood beauties who are pleased to shill for the diamond industry in magazine layouts and personal appearances.
As Steinem stood outside, Lindsay Lohan was inside the party, gushing over the possibility that she could get to wear one of the big rocks.
Asked by reporters about the Bushmen controversy, she shrugged it off: "I don't get involved in any drama.”
― Maureen Dowd

“Romantic googling can be as dangerous as drunk text messaging. Of course hell hath no fury like a woman who Google-bombs her old flames name with a word like "impotent.”
― Maureen Dowd

“I don't understand men. I don't even understand what I don't understand about men.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“I never presume to give advice on writing. I think the best way to learn to write is to read books
and stories by bood writers. It's a hard thing to preach about. As Thelonious Monk once said about
his field, "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
― Maureen Dowd

“McChrystal's defenders at the Pentagon were making the case Tuesday that the president and his men—(the McChrystal snipers spared Hillary)—must put aside their hurt feelings about being painted as weak sisters. Obama should not fire the serially insubordinate general, they reasoned, because that would undermine the mission in Afghanistan, and if that happens, then Obama would be further weakened.

So the commander in chief can be bad-mouthed as weak by the military but then he can't punish the military because that would make him weak? It's the same sort of pass-the-Advil vicious circle reasoning the military always uses.”
― Maureen Dowd

“McChrystal never should have been hired for this job given the outrageous cover-up he participated in after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. He was lucky to keep the job after his 'Seven Days in May' stunt in London last year when he openly lobbied and undercut the president on the surge.

But with the latest sassing, and the continued Sisyphean nature of the surge he urged, McChrystal should offer his resignation. He should try subordination for a change.”
― Maureen Dowd

“The sounds of silence are a dim recollection now, like mystery, privacy and paying attention to one thing — or one person — at a time.”
― Maureen Dowd

“Women are affected by lunar tides only once a month; men have raging hormones every day.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“We no longer have natural selection. We have unnatural selection. Survival of the fittest has been replaced by survival of the fakest.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“We've become a nation of Frankensteins, and our monster is us. With everyone working so hard at altering their facades, we no longer have natural selection. We have unnatural selection.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Instead of broadening the choices of how to look good, we have only broadened the ways we try to look alike. Women are headed toward one face, one body and one expression.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Who knows? If women all end up with the same face and body, men may gravitate toward the quirky. Then the chicks with the laugh lines and love handles will be the lucky ones.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Afghanistan is more than the 'graveyard of empires.' It's the mother of vicious circles.”
― Maureen Dowd

“As much as anybody since George Wallace or Pat Buchanan, he has overtly sent dog whistles of race out to white working-class voters. That gratuitous defamation of group after group, person after person, is just anathema to Obama. He genuinely believes this guy would be a calamity for the country.” Unlike the Bushes, who outsourced their political thuggery, Donald Trump does his own wet work. “He”
― Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics

“American women are evolving backward--becoming more focused on their looks than ever. Feminism has been defeated by narcissism.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Women fear that men will have their way and then slither away. Men fear that women will come back and boil their bunnies.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“So this general with the background in intelligence who is supposed to conquer Afghanistan can't even figure out what Rolling Stone is? We're not talking Guns & Ammo here; we're talking the antiwar hippie magazine.”
― Maureen Dowd

“Women can stand on the Empire State Building and scream to the heavens that they are equal to men and liberated, but until they have the same anatomy, it's a lie. It's more of a man's world today than ever. Men can eat their cake in unlimited bakeries.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“It is men's worst fear, personally and professionally, that women will pin the sin on them.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Given the electoral history of the Republicans since Nixon’s Southern Strategy, winning races by stirring up racist, homophobic and misogynist feelings, it was rich to see them criticizing Trump for those qualities. They simply wanted a nominee who would be a more subtle bigot, as party tradition demands. The”
― Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics

“We had the Belle Epoque. Now we have the Botox Epoque, permeated by plastic emotions from antidepressants and plastic veneers from collagen, silicone, cosmetic surgery and Botox.”
― Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide

“Trump is the Kim Kardashian of American politics, replacing substance with solipsism and issues debates with Twitter feuds, and showing a rare talent for grabbing the attention of an ADD nation round the clock as he tries to be Troll in Chief. “Celebrity”
― Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics

“We have an out-of-control id taunting a tightly controlled superego. We have the king of winging it versus the queen of homework. She says he’s too unpredictable to be president, he says she’s too predictable. Trump can excite his crowds but falters on substance; Hillary has substance but falters on exciting her crowds. “The boor versus the bore,” Time’s Charlotte Alter call it.”
― Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics

“Not to credit Donald Trump, because he’s crude and combative and an egomaniac, but in a weird way, he’s at least being candid. And I guess there’s something oddly thrilling about a guy who rips the mask off it all and is standing there as the naked id of politics. He is the destroyer of the old world.” The”
― Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics

“But maybe something new could work with the impossible child-man in the White House: positive reinforcement.

That was very smart, Mr. President, not to tangle with the Persians, who have been engaged in geopolitics since 550 B.C., until you have a better sense of exactly what is going on here. Listen to your isolationist instincts and your base, not to batty Bolton. You don’t want to get mired in a war that could spill over to Saudi Arabia and Israel, sparking conflagrations from Afghanistan to Lebanon and beyond.

Just remember: The Iranians are great negotiators with a bad hand and you are a terrible negotiator with a good hand.”
― Maureen Dowd

“Will Trump, who has scant impulse control and who’s willing to say the most insulting, provocative things that people wouldn’t say at a dinner party much less a global forum, get into a tweet battle with a madman and start a world war? Will Hillary ever seem on the level? Or will she always be surrounded by a cordon of creepy henchmen and Clinton Inc. sycophants, shrouded in a miasma of money grabs and conveniently disappearing records and emails? Both”
― Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics

“It’s the fusion of their magnetism with our ordinary existence that creates the magic.”
― Maureen Dowd, Notorious: Portraits of Stars from Hollywood, Culture, Fashion, and Tech