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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.
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
Beats
Nobody
Somebody
Winning
Truism
Politics
Truest
Political
Imperfect
Beat
Decide
More quotes by William Safire
To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.
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Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
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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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Have a definite opinion.
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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
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I want my questions answered by an alert and experienced politician, prepared to be grilled and quoted -- not my hand held by an old smoothie.
William Safire
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
William Safire
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.
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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.
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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.
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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.
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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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Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
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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.
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Never assume the obvious is true.
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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.
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
William Safire