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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
Way
Welcome
Result
Color
Results
Ways
Expressiveness
Greater
Precision
Words
Added
Used
Provided

More quotes by William Safire

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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
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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.
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'
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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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Took me a while to get to the point today, but that is because I did not know what the point was when I started.
William Safire
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The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .
William Safire
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One difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken.
William Safire
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A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.
William Safire
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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
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Different regions may require different strategies, as President Bush has noted, but not different basic principles. It's either collective security or selective security.
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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To communicate, put your words in order give them a purpose use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
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Never assume the obvious is true.
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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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Have a definite opinion.
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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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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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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