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A writer is always working.

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
Writer
Working
Writing
Always

More quotes by William Zinsser

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Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.
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A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
William Zinsser
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Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
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Writing is a craft not an art.
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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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If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
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Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
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If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.
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Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.
William Zinsser
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What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.
William Zinsser
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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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Thought is action in rehearsal.
William Zinsser
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Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.
William Zinsser
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My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
William Zinsser
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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
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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
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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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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
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The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
William Zinsser
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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