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To communicate, put your words in order give them a purpose use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.

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
Use
Instruct
Order
Seducing
Give
Persuade
Giving
Clarity
Discover
Communicate
Purpose
Words
Seduce

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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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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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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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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
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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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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
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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.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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The Republicans do not look on the Democrats as the evil empire.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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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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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
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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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