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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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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
Dealing
Lebanon
Force
Cease
Inch
War
Gun
Jersey
Shelling
Reason
Suddenly
Dictator
Battleship
Sweet
Counts
Damascus
Started
Inches
Prevailed
Syria
Proxy
Fire
Guns
Attainable
Peace

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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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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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It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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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.
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I want my questions answered by an alert and experienced politician, prepared to be grilled and quoted -- not my hand held by an old smoothie.
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Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
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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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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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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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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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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
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The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.
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