Safire Quotes

When duty calls, that is when character counts. ~ William Safire

Some handsome and ambitious men believe they are above all morality, and a woman's virtue becomes a mere challenge to them. ~ William Safire

More than illness or death, the American journalist fears standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience. Deprive William Safire of the insignia of the New York Times, and he would have a hard time selling his truths to a weekly broadsheet in suburban Duluth. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

Lack of accomplishment is one thing; deceit is quite another. Everyone who has followed her career knows that Hillary is dishonest to the core, a "congenital liar" as columnist William Safire once put it. The writer Christopher Hitchens titled his book about the Clintons No One Left to Lie To. Even Hollywood mogul David Geffen, an avid progressive, said a few years ago of the Clintons, "Everybody in politics lies but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."3 ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Adjective salad is delicious, with each element contributing its individual and unique flavor; but a puree of adjective soup tastes yecchy. ~ William Safire

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

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. ~ William Safire

I think we all have a need to know what we do not need to know. ~ William Safire

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

Kissing your hand may make you feel very very good but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts forever ~ Anita Loos

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. ~ William Safire

Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available? ~ William Safire

Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media. ~ William Safire

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect. ~ William Safire

The new, old, and constantly changing language of politics is a lexicon of conflict and drama?ridicule and reproach?pleading and persuasion. ~ William Safire

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. ~ William Safire

Death was a quiet evil, unavoidable like the dark night and defenseless sleep and tearful sorrows. It had hunted her down and slithered close, wanting only to smother every last flicker of life."
- from "My Aquarius ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The most fun in breaking a rule is in knowing what rule you're breaking. ~ William Safire

What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation. ~ William Safire

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

Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year. ~ William Safire

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

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue. ~ William Safire

Stop worrying about the 'dumbing down' of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a 'race to the bottom' of the page by little minds confined to little words. ~ William Safire

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

Our rogue President, after selling face time ... ~ William Safire

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

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning. ~ William Safire

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. ~ William Safire

I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years. ~ William Safire

The trick is to start early in our careers the stress-relieving avocation that we will need later as a mind-exercising final vocation. We can quit a job, but we quit fresh involvement at our mental peril. ~ William Safire

I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian. ~ William Safire

It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. ~ William Safire

President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience. ~ William Safire

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts. ~ William Safire

Create your own constituency of the infuriated. ~ William Safire

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. ~ William Safire

What do you call a co-worker these days? Neither teammate nor confederate will do, and partner is too legalistic. The answer brought from academia to the political world by Henry Kissinger and now bandied in the boardroom is colleague. It has a nice upper-egalitarian feel, related to the good fellowship of collegial. ~ William Safire

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. ~ William Safire

By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking. ~ William Safire

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague. ~ William Safire

Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day. ~ William Safire

The noun phrase straw man, now used as a compound adjective as in 'straw-man device, technique or issue,' was popularized in American culture by 'The Wizard of Oz.' ~ William Safire

No one flower can ever symbolize this nation. America is a bouquet ... ~ William Safire

Of higher value than any one leader is the cause. ~ William Safire

When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary. ~ William Safire

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

To 'know your place' is a good idea in politics. That is not to say 'stay in your place' or 'hang on to your place', because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place - a feel for one's own position in the control room-is useful in gauging what you should try to do. ~ William Safire

One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience. ~ William Safire

Decide on some imperfect Somebody and you will win, because the truest truism in politics is: You can't beat Somebody with Nobody. ~ William Safire

Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job. ~ William Safire

Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks. ~ William Safire

Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight. ~ William Safire

Never assume the obvious is true. ~ William Safire

Gridlock is great. My motto is, 'Don't just do something. Stand there.' ~ William Safire

Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had. ~ William Safire

To communicate, put your words in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. ~ William Safire

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

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. ~ William Safire

Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of "Remember to never split an infinitive" and "The passive voice should never be used." The notion of making a mistake while laying down rules ("Thimk," "We Never Make Misteaks") is highly unoriginal, and it turns out that English teachers have been circulating lists of fumblerules for years. As owner of the world's largest collection, and with thanks to scores of readers, let me pass along a bunch of these never-say-neverisms:

* Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
* Don't use no double negatives.
* Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.
* Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.
* Do not put statements in the negative form.
* Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
* No sentence fragments.
* Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
* Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
* If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
* A writer must not shift your point of view.
* Eschew dialect, irregardless.
* And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!
* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
* Writers should always hyphenate between ~ William Safire

A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble. ~ William Safire

I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness. ~ William Safire

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

A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion. ~ William Safire

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. ~ William Safire

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. ~ William Safire

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

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

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq. ~ William Safire