William Safire Quotes - Page 3

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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

  Mind, Accused, Dummy

  52 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Safire

  Religious, Peace, War

  6 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Eye, Hot, Ems

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Nice, Cfo, Giving

  William Safire (1988). “Coming to terms”, Doubleday

  7 Copy quote

• The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.

  William Safire

  Office, Firsts, First Lady

  "The First Lady Stages a Coup" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. March 02, 1987.

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Nuggets, Looks, News

  "How to Read a Column" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. January 24, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• Of higher value than any one leader is the cause.

  William Safire

  Leader, Causes, Strategy

  4 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Writing, Long, Use

  7 Copy quote

• Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.

  William Safire

  Knees, Jerk

  4 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Needs, Looks, Dictionary

  "Dictionaurus" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. June 10, 2009.

  13 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Writing, Use, Nouns

  "On Language; When Putsch Comes to Coup" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. September 22, 1991.

  4 Copy quote

• Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'

  William Safire

  Quotation Marks, Mark, Quotations

  William Safire, Leonard Safir (1990). “Words of Wisdom”, p.213, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Cat, Stories, Lines

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  White, Giving, Satisfaction

  William Safire (2011). “Language Maven Strikes Again”, p.480, Doubleday

  15 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Libertarian, Willing

  "William Safire to End Op-Ed Run at N.Y. Times" by Howard Kurtz, p. C01, www.washingtonpost.com. November 16, 2004.

  6 Copy quote

• ... 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

  Baby, Nwo, Roots

  7 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Reading, Writing, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• You don't overturn a previous court's decisions lightly and I think most Americans are somewhere in the middle on abortion and there's not going to be a revolution here at all.

  William Safire

  Thinking, Abortion, Decision

  Source: www.msnbc.com

  4 Copy quote

• George Washington had a tough second term.

  William Safire

  Tough, Term

  Source: www.msnbc.com

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Order, Judging, Style

  "Essay; Seizing Dictatorial Power" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. November 15, 2001.

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Taken, Jargon, Columnists

  "How to Read a Column" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. January 24, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Looks, Littles, Ratios

  4 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Book, Should Have, Intellectual

  "Dictionaurus" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. June 10, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• [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

  Class, Politics, Resentment

  4 Copy quote

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

  William Safire

  Men, Color, Mind

  1968 Safire's Political Dictionary, introduction.

  4 Copy quote

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