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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

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
Apathy
Cynicism
Caused
Empathy
Ignorance
Speech
Care
Sloppiness

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Decide on some imperfect Somebody and you will win, because the truest truism in politics is: You can't beat Somebody with Nobody.
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A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
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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.
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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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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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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
William Safire
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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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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.'
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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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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
William Safire
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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
William Safire
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I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
William Safire
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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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The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.
William Safire
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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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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
William Safire