130 Quotes by William Safire

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

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.

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

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.

The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.

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.

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

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.

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