William Safire Quotes & Sayings

“What do you call a co-worker these days? Neither teammate nor confederate will do, and partner is too legalistic. The answer brought from academia to the political world by Henry Kissinger and now bandied in the boardroom is colleague. It has a nice upper-egalitarian feel, related to the good fellowship of collegial.”

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

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

“Stop worrying about the 'dumbing down' of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a 'race to the bottom' of the page by little minds confined to little words.”

“Never assume the obvious is true.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Sometimes I know the meaning of a word but am tired of it and feel the need for an unfamiliar, especially precise or poetic term, perhaps one with a nuance that flatters my readership's exquisite sensitivity.”

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