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
English
Novel
Education
Steinbeck
Talking
Interviewing
Better
Professor
Professors
Novels
John

More quotes by William Safire

Image
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.
William Safire
Image
Never assume the obvious is true.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
One difference between French appeasement and American appeasement is that France pays ransom in cash and gets its hostages back while the United States pays ransom in arms and gets additional hostages taken.
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
A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
William Safire
Image
The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
William Safire
Image
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.
William Safire
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.
William Safire
Image
Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
William Safire
Image
Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had.
William Safire
Image
Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.
William Safire
Image
Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
William Safire
Image
What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
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
The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .
William Safire
Image
[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.
William Safire
Image
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.'
William Safire