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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.

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
Character
Accountability
Right
Libertarian
Mean
Ethics
Something
Honesty
Integrity
Honor
Liberty
Doe

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Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.
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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.
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One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.
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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
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Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the reader wants to take the message directly on the chin.
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On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.
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Never assume the obvious is true.
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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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.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
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The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.
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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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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
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When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.
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Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.
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