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A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
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
Results
Simple
Hard
Writing
Work
Software
Result
Design
Style
More quotes by William Zinsser
Writing is no respecter of blueprints.
William Zinsser
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
Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso they needed models. This is especially true of writing.
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
Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.
William Zinsser
The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.
William Zinsser
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
Good writers are visible just behind their words.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
Writing is hard work.
William Zinsser
The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.
William Zinsser
Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
William Zinsser
Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
William Zinsser
One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
William Zinsser
Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
William Zinsser
Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge.
William Zinsser
But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.
William Zinsser
Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away.
William Zinsser
