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Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.

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
Always
Weeds
Like
Clutter
Slightly
Weed
Behinds
Behind
Writer
Fighting

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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.
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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.
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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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Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.
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Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy the choice is ours.
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Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.
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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.
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A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
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Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.
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Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new.
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The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn't induce him to continue to the third sentence, it's equally dead.
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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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Good writing is lean and confident.
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The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.
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Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.
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Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.
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Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.
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The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.
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Be grateful for every word you can cut.
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