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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.

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
America
Ever
Symbolize
Bouquet
Bouquets
Flower
Nation
Nations

More quotes by William Safire

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I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.
William Safire
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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
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[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
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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.
William Safire
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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
William Safire
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The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.
William Safire
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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
William Safire
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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.
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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A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
William Safire
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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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The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.
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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Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.
William Safire
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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
William Safire
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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
William Safire
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It is in the nature of tyranny to deride the will of the people as the voice of the mob, and to denounce the cry for freedom as the roar of anarchy.
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.
William Safire
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
William Safire
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In dealing with Syria's dictator...only force counts. No cease-fire was attainable in Lebanon until the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey started shelling Syria's proxies suddenly, sweet reason prevailed in Damascus.
William Safire