Quote

Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

William Zinsser

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Believe
Saying
Bold
Good
Belief
Confident
Away
Prose
Hedge
Littles
Readers
Timidity
Little
Believes
Fraction
Writing
Reader
Fractions
Every
Writer
Lean
Kind
Trust
Diminish

More quotes by William Zinsser

Image
Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.
William Zinsser
Image
I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.
William Zinsser
Image
If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.
William Zinsser
Image
All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.
William Zinsser
Image
Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.
William Zinsser
Image
When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
Editors are licensed to be curious.
William Zinsser
Image
No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief
William Zinsser
Image
Clutter is the disease of American writing.
William Zinsser
Image
Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.
William Zinsser
Image
The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.
William Zinsser
Image
Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a different person.
William Zinsser
Image
Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.
William Zinsser
Image
To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is thinking on paper.
William Zinsser
Image
Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.
William Zinsser
Image
Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
William Zinsser