Quote

Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn't much help-taste is a quality so intangible that it can't even be defined. But we know it when we meet 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
Intangible
Writing
Taste
Largely
Even
Saying
Readers
Much
Quality
Defined
Help
Findings
Enjoy
Finding
Voice
Helping
Meet
Matter
Reader

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Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
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Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.
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It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
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Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like enthralling and luminous.
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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.
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Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.
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Thought is action in rehearsal.
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Not everybody has a talent for painting, or for the piano, or for dance. But we can write our way into the artist's head and into his problems and solutions. Or we can go there with another writer.
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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.
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Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.
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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.
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The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.
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You learn to write by writing.
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Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.
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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
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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
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Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.
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Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
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You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want
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Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia.
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