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

More quotes by William Safire

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We are all environmentalists now, but we are not all planetists. An environmentalist realizes that nature has its pleasures and deserves respect. A planetist puts the earth ahead of the earthlings.
William Safire
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Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.'
William Safire
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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.
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The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go 'round. It's not love, it's that tension, because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is at the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.
William Safire
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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.
William Safire
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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.
William Safire
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Don't expect others to do your work for you.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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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The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.
William Safire
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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
William Safire
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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.
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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This is what it's all about. From what I could see, you could get a bunch of people together, whip up the press and have some impact.
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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Have a definite opinion.
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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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
William Safire
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
William Safire
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The remarkable legion of the unremarked, whose individual opinions are not colorful or different enough to make news, but whose collective opinion, when crystallized, can make history.
William Safire