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The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.
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
Force
Regular
Write
Basis
Certain
Bases
Writing
Number
Way
Produce
Numbers
Words
Learn
More quotes by William Zinsser
Be grateful for every word you can cut.
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Clutter is the disease of American writing.
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Writing is hard work.
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Writing is a craft not an art.
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Writers are the custodians of memory, and that's what this chapter is about: how to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into.
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Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.
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There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
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Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.
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All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
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Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
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Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
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The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do.
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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.
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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.
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There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.
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Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
William Zinsser
Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.
William Zinsser
Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.
William Zinsser
Writers who think THEY are being criticized when only that writing is being criticized are beyond a teacher's reach. Writing can only be learned when a writer coldly separates himself from what he has written and looks at it with the objectivity of a plumber examining a newly piped bathroom to see if he got all the joints tight.
William Zinsser
