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I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.
William Zinsser
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William Zinsser
Age: 92 †
Born: 1922
Born: October 7
Died: 2015
Died: May 12
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
New York City
New York
William Knowlton Zinsser
Firsts
Admit
Well
Ego
First
Almost
Writing
Write
Always
Persons
People
Person
Wells
Urge
Might
Urges
More quotes by William Zinsser
If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.
William Zinsser
Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.
William Zinsser
The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn't induce him to continue to the third sentence, it's equally dead.
William Zinsser
Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge.
William Zinsser
A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
William Zinsser
There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you.
William Zinsser
My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
William Zinsser
Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.
William Zinsser
I try to make what I have written tighter, stronger and more precise, eliminating every element that's not doing useful work. Then I go over it once more, reading it aloud, and am always amazed at how much clutter can still be cut.
William Zinsser
If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
William Zinsser
Writing is no respecter of blueprints.
William Zinsser
All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
William Zinsser
Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
William Zinsser
The sound of the bat is the music of spring training.
William Zinsser
What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.
William Zinsser
A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.
William Zinsser
One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
William Zinsser
It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
William Zinsser
Good writing is lean and confident.
William Zinsser
Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray.
William Zinsser
