Best 79 quotes of William Safire on MyQuotes

Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.

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

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.

A man who lies, thinking it is the truth, is an honest man, and a man who tells the truth, believing it to be a lie, is a liar.

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

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.

As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.

Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'

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

Carter is the best President the Soviet Union ever had.

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

Color and bite permeate a language designed to rally many men, to destroy some, and to change the minds of others.

Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat.

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

Different regions may require different strategies, as President Bush has noted, but not different basic principles. It's either collective security or selective security.

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.

English is a stretch language; one size fits all.

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.

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

Have a definite opinion.

I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.

If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.'

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

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

It is in the nature of tyranny to deride the will of the people as the voice of the mob, and to denounce the cry for freedom as the roar of anarchy.

... 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.

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.

I was standing next to a famed geo-politician when the first news of the Argentine attack [on the Faulkland Islands] was received, and heard him muse incredulously: "An old-fashioned naval battle. A war between two civilized nations, perhaps with even a declaration of war, and later a peace conference. Wow." No hostages, no nukes, no ideologies, no religious fanaticism; just a fair-and-square war over national interests - hard to believe, in this day and age.

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

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

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Never assume the obvious is true.

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

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.

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

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.

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

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.

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.

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

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.

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

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

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.

[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.