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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
Fit
Reader
Paper
Causes
Column
Successful
Peak
Columns
Throw

More quotes by 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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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
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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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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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[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
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Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had.
William Safire
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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.
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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Give your main clause a little space. Prose is not like boxing the skilled writer deliberately telegraphs his punch, knowing that the reader wants to take the message directly on the chin.
William Safire
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Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.
William Safire
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Never assume the obvious is true.
William Safire
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Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'
William Safire
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In dealing with Syria's dictator...only force counts. No cease-fire was attainable in Lebanon until the 16-inch guns of the battleship New Jersey started shelling Syria's proxies suddenly, sweet reason prevailed in Damascus.
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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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.
William Safire
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On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's.
William Safire
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Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.
William Safire
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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.
William Safire
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I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.
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