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Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.

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
Tough
Slang
Color
Freshness
Grace
Precision
Style
Adapt
Wish
Hang
Clarity
Admit
Structure

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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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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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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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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
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When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity, you are placed under unprecedented control.
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Have a definite opinion.
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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.
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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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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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Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
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The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.
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Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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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.
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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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To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.
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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.
William Safire