William Safire Quotes

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.

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

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

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.

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."

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

[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.

A book should have an intellectual shape and a heft that comes with dealing with a primary subject.

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

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.

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

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.

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 willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian.

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.

I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.'

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.

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.

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

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.

Never assume the obvious is true.

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

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.

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

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 . . .

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

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.

... 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.

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

Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.

The Republicans do not look on the Democrats as the evil empire.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Create your own constituency of the infuriated.

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

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

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