Quote

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
Sometimes
Tired
Flatters
Feels
Meaning
Readership
Needs
Especially
Nuance
Perhaps
Unfamiliar
Term
Exquisite
Word
Sensitivity
Need
Precise
Feel
Poetic

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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
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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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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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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.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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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.
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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 dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
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