Quote

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

More quotes by William Safire

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Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
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Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.
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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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Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them.
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Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy.
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If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.
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What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation.
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When duty calls, that is when character counts.
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The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.
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Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
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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.
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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.'
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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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Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.
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Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
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At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
William Safire
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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.
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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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
William Safire