William Safire
William Safire
William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 December 1929
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
size language fit
English is a stretch language; one size fits all.
sweet peace war
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.
religious peace war
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.
president different may
Different regions may require different strategies, as President Bush has noted, but not different basic principles. It's either collective security or selective security.
heart ideas world
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.
jobs reading guilty
Never feel guilty about reading, it's what you do to do your job.
littles ratios able
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.
successful paper causes
The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
impact people together
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.
knees jerk
Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks.
knowing space boxing
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.
color grace style
Adapt your style, if you wish, to admit the color of slang or freshness of neologism, but hang tough on clarity, precision, structure, grace.
jobs stress exercise
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.
children able causes
A dependent clause is like a dependent child: incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.