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The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.

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
Perfect
Sportscaster
Clich
Ties
Christmas
Gift
Fans
Sports

More quotes by William Safire

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You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.
William Safire
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
William Safire
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
William Safire
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
William Safire
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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.
William Safire
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The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
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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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.
William Safire
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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
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Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'
William Safire
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Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
William Safire
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Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
William Safire
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When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.
William Safire
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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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Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
William Safire
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The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.
William Safire
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Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
William Safire
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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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George Washington had a tough second term.
William Safire
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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
William Safire