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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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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
Every
Cutting
Clutter
Make
Written
Eliminating
Always
Reading
Amazed
Stills
Precise
Still
Element
Trying
Useful
Work
Stronger
Tighter
Much
Elements
Aloud
More quotes by William Zinsser
If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.
William Zinsser
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
William Zinsser
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
William Zinsser
Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
William Zinsser
Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge.
William Zinsser
Also bear in mind, when you're choosing your words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize.
William Zinsser
Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.
William Zinsser
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.
William Zinsser
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
William Zinsser
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
Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
William Zinsser
Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.
William Zinsser
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
There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
William Zinsser
People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like.
William Zinsser
If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
One of the saddest sentences I know is I wish I had asked my mother about that. Or my father. Or my grandmother. Or my grandfather. As every parent knows, our children are not as fascinated by our fascinating lives as we are.
William Zinsser
Editors are licensed to be curious.
William Zinsser
Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
William Zinsser
Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.
William Zinsser
