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Never put the story in the lead. Let 'em have a hot shot of ambiguity right between the eyes.

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
Eyes
Story
Eye
Ambiguity
Stories
Ems
Right
Hot
Never
Shot
Shots
Lead

More quotes by William Safire

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No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet.
William Safire
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Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. And don't start a sentence with a conjugation.
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Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.
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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.
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Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'
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I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.
William Safire
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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
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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
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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.
William Safire
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Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.
William Safire
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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.
William Safire
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By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
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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.
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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
William Safire
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President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.
William Safire
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
William Safire
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Never look for the story in the 'lede.' Reporters are required to put what's happened up top, but the practiced pundit places a nugget of news, even a startling insight, halfway down the column, directed at the politiscenti. When pressed for time, the savvy reader starts there.
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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I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.
William Safire
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Don't expect others to do your work for you.
William Safire