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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

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
Articulation
Rescue
Impossible
Comes

More quotes by 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
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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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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
William Safire
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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
William Safire
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It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
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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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
William Safire
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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
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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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The Republicans do not look on the Democrats as the evil empire.
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Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.
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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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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
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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.
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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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.
William Safire
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The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking.
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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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One difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken.
William Safire