William Safire

Don't expect others to do your work for you.

— William Safire

Create your own constituency of the infuriated.

— William Safire

Our rogue President, after selling face time...

— William Safire

When duty calls, that is when character counts.

— William Safire

Have a definite opinion.

— William Safire

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

— William Safire

Never assume the obvious is true.

— William Safire

Avoid overuse of 'quotation “marks.”'

— William Safire

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to…

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

The perfect Christmas gift for a sportscaster, as all fans of sports clichés know, is a scoreless tie.

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

“On the two-way street of communication, a happy symbiosis is achieved when a writer tosses up an offbeat usage or a puzzling…

— 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…

— 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

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl…

— William Safire

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to…

— 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…

— William Safire

The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most…

— William Safire

In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge,…

— 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…

— William Safire

When your government, employer, landlord, merchant, banker and local sports team gang up to picture, digitize and permanently record your every activity,…

— 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…

— William Safire

This is not some alarmist Orwellian scenario; it is here, now, financed by $20 billion last year and $15 billion more this…

— William Safire

I was standing next to a famed geo-politician when the first news of the Argentine attack [on the Faulkland Islands] was received,…

— 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…

— William Safire

“Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of "Remember to never split an infinitive" and "The…

— William Safire

George Washington had a tough second term.

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

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

— William Safire

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

— William Safire