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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.
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
Perhaps
Unfamiliar
Term
Exquisite
Word
Sensitivity
Need
Precise
Feel
Poetic
Sometimes
Tired
Flatters
Feels
Meaning
Readership
Needs
Especially
Nuance
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Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
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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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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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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.
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The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
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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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Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
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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.
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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
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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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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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Took me a while to get to the point today, but that is because I did not know what the point was when I started.
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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
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