Quote

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.

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
Little
Messages
Skilled
Take
Reader
Punch
Giving
Writer
Deliberately
Like
Wants
Prose
Clause
Knowing
Boxing
Telegraph
Space
Directly
Clauses
Give
Main
Chin
Littles
Message
Chins

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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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[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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One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.
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When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
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If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.
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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 right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
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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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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
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It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
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Took me a while to get to the point today, but that is because I did not know what the point was when I started.
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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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Never assume the obvious is true.
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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.
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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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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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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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Different regions may require different strategies, as President Bush has noted, but not different basic principles. It's either collective security or selective security.
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
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