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

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.

Never assume the obvious is true.

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

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

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

Have a definite opinion.

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

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

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.

I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.

I'm a right-wing pundit and have been for many years.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The noun phrase straw man, now used as a compound adjective as in 'straw-man device, technique or issue,' was popularized in American culture by 'The Wizard of Oz.'

The wonderful thing about being a New York Times columnist is that it's like a Supreme Court appointment - they're stuck with you for a long time.

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.

Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.

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.

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

When articulation is impossible, gesticulation comes to the rescue.

When infuriated by an outrageous column, do not be suckered into responding with an abusive e-mail. Pundits so targeted thumb through these red-faced electronic missives with delight, saying 'Hah! Got to 'em.'

Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.

A dependent clause is like a dependent child incapable of standing on its own but able to cause a lot of trouble.

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.

Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose.

I've never understood why artists, who so often condescend to the cliches of their own culture, are so eager to embrace the cliches of cultures they know nothing about.

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

Let's have some new cliches.

I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.

Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and cliches.

I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

I would rather read a poorly structured story that has fresh ideas than a tightly structured one with cliches.

The computing field is always in need of new cliches.

Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.

Most of my cliches aren't original.

We just kind saw the images and knew the cliches, so to have the opportunity to go there and learn something about Russian music and about Russian people and to see things apart from being a tourist.

The cliches are that it's the most generic Starsky and Hutch plot you can find.

I think that often times Hollywood panders to the cliches of small town life, specifically Southern small town life, and I think that this movie does the opposite.

I'm working class, and want people to know I'm not unintelligent and all the other cliches that come with it.

You need cliches. Cliches are what people respond to.

I'm one of the cliches that has grown up.

Political art expresses the cliches you agree with, unlike propaganda, which expresses the cliches you don't.

Cliches are what make you understand something.