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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.

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
Better
Jerks
Knee
Jerk
Knees

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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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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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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.
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A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio.
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Never assume the obvious is true.
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.
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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.
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Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
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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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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
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George Washington had a tough second term.
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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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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.
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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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