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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
Writer
Fighting
Always
Weeds
Like
Clutter
Slightly
Weed
Behinds
Behind

More quotes by William Zinsser

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A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.
William Zinsser
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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
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Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.
William Zinsser
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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.
William Zinsser
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Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
William Zinsser
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As a writer I try to operate within a framework of Christian principles, and the words that are important to me are religious words: witness, pilgrimage, intention.
William Zinsser
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The sound of the bat is the music of spring training.
William Zinsser
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If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
William Zinsser
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Although the frankfurter originated in Frankfurt, Germany, we have long since made it our own, a twin pillar of democracy along with Mom's apple pie. In fact, now that Mom's apple pie comes frozen and baked by somebody who isn't Mom, the hot dog stands alone. What it symbolizes remains pure, even if what it contains does not.
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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Good writers are visible just behind their words.
William Zinsser
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Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
William Zinsser
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Writers who think THEY are being criticized when only that writing is being criticized are beyond a teacher's reach. Writing can only be learned when a writer coldly separates himself from what he has written and looks at it with the objectivity of a plumber examining a newly piped bathroom to see if he got all the joints tight.
William Zinsser
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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
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Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
William Zinsser
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Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.
William Zinsser
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Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
William Zinsser
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Many writers are paralyzed by the thought that they are competing with everybody else who is trying to write and presumably doing it better.... Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Your only contest is with yourself.
William Zinsser
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The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.
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