Quote

Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.

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
Elements
Adjectives
Unique
Salad
Taste
Contributing
Individual
Tastes
Flavor
Soup
Delicious
Element
Adjective

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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
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Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when he was British Foreign Secretary, said he received the following telegram from an irate citizen: To hell with you. Offensive letter follows.
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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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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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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.'
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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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When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.
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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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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
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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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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
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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.
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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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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.
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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.
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To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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