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The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.

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
Successful
Column
Peak
Columns
Throw
Fit
Reader
Paper
Causes

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English is a stretch language one size fits all.
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To be accused of 'channeling' is to be dismissed as a ventriloquist's live dummy, derogated at not having a mind of one's own.
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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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I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
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... it's Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate a glutton empraces the white porcelain alter, or more plainly, he barfs.
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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.
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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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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.
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A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.
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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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Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
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Create your own constituency of the infuriated.
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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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A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.
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I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.
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Don't expect others to do your work for you.
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