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Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.

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
Word
Purpose
Find
Examine
Every
Surprising
Serve
Number
Paper
Numbers

More quotes by William Zinsser

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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
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Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.
William Zinsser
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Every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five - just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader's mind.
William Zinsser
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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
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Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader.
William Zinsser
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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.
William Zinsser
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One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
William Zinsser
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Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
William Zinsser
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Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty. The sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and graceful boughs and frisky kittens and sleepy lagoons.
William Zinsser
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Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
William Zinsser
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Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.
William Zinsser
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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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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
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Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray.
William Zinsser
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To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
William Zinsser
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I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
William Zinsser
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Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.
William Zinsser
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Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
William Zinsser
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Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with but. If that's what you learned, unlearn it - there's no stronger word at the start. It announces a total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change.
William Zinsser
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As a writer I try to operate within a framework of Christian principles, and the words that are important to me are religious words: witness, pilgrimage, intention.
William Zinsser