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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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William Safire
Age: 79 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 17
Died: 2009
Died: September 27
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Writer
New York City
New York
William Lewis Safire
Results
Ways
Expressiveness
Greater
Precision
Words
Added
Used
Provided
Way
Welcome
Result
Color

More quotes by William Safire

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The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.
William Safire
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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.
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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
William Safire
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To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do.
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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Never look for the story in the 'lede.' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
William Safire
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
William Safire
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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
William Safire
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Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
William Safire
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Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
William Safire
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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
William Safire
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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
William Safire
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
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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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
William Safire