Quote

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

William Safire

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Least
Lasts
Last
Like
Superlatives
Cliches
Cliche
Plague
Avoid

More quotes by William Safire

Image
Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
William Safire
Image
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
Image
Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
William Safire
Image
Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.
William Safire
Image
Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
William Safire
Image
When duty calls, that is when character counts.
William Safire
Image
I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
William Safire
Image
Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.
William Safire
Image
It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
William Safire
Image
Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
William Safire
Image
Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
William Safire
Image
A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
William Safire
Image
[Senators John Kerry & John Edwards] have risen high in Democratic polls with a brand of class resentment and soak-the-rich rhetoric rooted in the old-fashioned liberalism of Ted Kennedy.
William Safire
Image
Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
William Safire
Image
The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.
William Safire
Image
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
William Safire
Image
Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
William Safire
Image
By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
William Safire
Image
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
Image
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