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Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.
William Safire
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William Safire
Age: 79 †
Born: 1929
Born: December 17
Died: 2009
Died: September 27
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New York City
New York
William Lewis Safire
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Jargon
Taken
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More quotes by William Safire
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
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.
William Safire
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
Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
William Safire
Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
William Safire
When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
William Safire
Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
William Safire
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
You don't want lopsided government. You don't want one side running roughshod over the other.
William Safire
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
What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
William Safire
Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
William Safire
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.
William Safire
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
I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
William Safire
I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.
William Safire
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
William Safire
On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.
William Safire
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
Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
William Safire