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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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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
Used
Bare
Ruined
Sing
Writers
Longer
Media
Show
Erudition
Shows
Choir

More quotes by William Safire

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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.
William Safire
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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.'
William Safire
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Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
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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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
William Safire
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We are all environmentalists now, but we are not all planetists. An environmentalist realizes that nature has its pleasures and deserves respect. A planetist puts the earth ahead of the earthlings.
William Safire
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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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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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A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.
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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Never assume the obvious is true.
William Safire
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The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.
William Safire
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... it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.
William Safire
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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.
William Safire
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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
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The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - knowledge is power. Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.
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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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
William Safire
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Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation.
William Safire
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
William Safire