Quote

I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.

William Safire

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Interviewing
Talking
Professor
Better
Professors
Novels
John
English
Novel
Steinbeck
Education

More quotes by William Safire

Image
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
Image
The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - knowledge is power. Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.
William Safire
Image
I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
William Safire
Image
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
Image
By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
William Safire
Image
Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
William Safire
Image
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
Image
I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
William Safire
Image
The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.
William Safire
Image
The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril.
William Safire
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
William Safire
Image
A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
William Safire
Image
The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion.
William Safire
Image
Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
William Safire
Image
Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.
William Safire
Image
Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had.
William Safire