Quotes from William Safire

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

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.

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.

Have a definite opinion.

One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.

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.

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

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

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

As long as one American is hungry... then we have unfinished business in this country.

Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight

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

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.