William Safire Quotes

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

Why say 'utilize' when you can say 'use'?

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

I would never use a long word, even, where a short one would answer the purpose.

Good writing does not come from verbiage but from words.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Aim for brevity while avoiding jargon.

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

All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.

Use familiar words-words that your readers will understand, and not words they will have to look up. No advice is more elementary, and no advice is more difficult to accept. When we feel an impulse to use a marvelously exotic word, let us lie down until the impulse goes away.

Anybody can have ideas-the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

Anyone can make an article longer; the skill is keeping it tight and lean.

One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store. Brevity is very important. If you're going to be longwinded, it should be for a purpose. Not just because you like your words.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

I'm not an angry person. When I write, the lawyer in me tries to make it as easy to read as possible.

In prose, I think you sometimes have to write in very plain language, where every line may not seem to be so important, though in all writing every line is important.

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.

I cannot write long books; I leave that for those who have nothing to say.

Use half as many words and they'll hit twice as hard.

Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

We should constantly use the most common, little, easy words which our language affords.