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If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.

William Safire

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William Safire
Age: 79 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 17
Died: 2009
Died: September 27
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Journalist
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New York City
New York
William Lewis Safire
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More quotes by William Safire

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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
William Safire
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It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
William Safire
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You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
William Safire
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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
William Safire
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You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.
William Safire
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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
William Safire
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This is what it's all about. From what I could see, you could get a bunch of people together, whip up the press and have some impact.
William Safire
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The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.
William Safire
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I want my questions answered by an alert and experienced politician, prepared to be grilled and quoted -- not my hand held by an old smoothie.
William Safire
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
William Safire
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A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.
William Safire
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A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
William Safire
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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
William Safire
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
William Safire
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Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.
William Safire
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In dealing with Syria's dictator...only force counts. No cease-fire was attainable in Lebanon until the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey started shelling Syria's proxies suddenly, sweet reason prevailed in Damascus.
William Safire
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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
William Safire
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Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
William Safire
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To communicate, put your words in order give them a purpose use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
William Safire
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
William Safire