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

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
Much
Quality
Readers
Help
Defined
Enjoy
Findings
Voice
Finding
Helping
Meet
Matter
Reader
Writing
Taste
Intangible
Even
Saying
Largely

More quotes by William Zinsser

Image
To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
William Zinsser
Image
There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.
William Zinsser
Image
Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.
William Zinsser
Image
There's no subject you don't have permission to write about. Students often avoid subjects close to their heart ... because they assume that their teachers will regard those topics as 'stupid.' No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. If you follow your affections you will write well and will engage your readers.
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
Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
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
The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.
William Zinsser
Image
It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.
William Zinsser
Image
Although the frankfurter originated in Frankfurt, Germany, we have long since made it our own, a twin pillar of democracy along with Mom's apple pie. In fact, now that Mom's apple pie comes frozen and baked by somebody who isn't Mom, the hot dog stands alone. What it symbolizes remains pure, even if what it contains does not.
William Zinsser
Image
I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
William Zinsser
Image
Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.
William Zinsser
Image
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
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
Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person who says 'indeed' or 'moreover,' or who calls someone an individual ('he's a fine individual'), please don't write it.
William Zinsser
Image
The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.
William Zinsser
Image
I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.
William Zinsser