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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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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
Times
Columnists
Thing
Appointment
Long
Appointments
Time
Stuck
Like
Supreme
Court
York
Wonderful
Columnist

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George Washington had a tough second term.
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You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
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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 . . .
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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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You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.
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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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The Republicans do not look on the Democrats as the evil empire.
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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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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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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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Have a definite opinion.
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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.
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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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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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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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... 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.
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
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