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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
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.
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The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
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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.
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Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
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Good writing is lean and confident.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
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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Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
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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Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.
William Zinsser
My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
William Zinsser
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
If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
William Zinsser
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
I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
William Zinsser
Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.
William Zinsser
Writing is linear and sequential Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?
William Zinsser
The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.
William Zinsser
Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
William Zinsser