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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
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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
Two
Thoughts
Thought
Pieces
Every
Single
Mind
Leave
Provocative
Successful
Nonfiction
Five
Decide
Point
Piece
Didn
Reader
More quotes by William Zinsser
Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
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You learn to write by writing.
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All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.
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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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I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
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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.
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Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia.
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Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.
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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.
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One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
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Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.
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Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.
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Clutter is the disease of American writing.
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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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Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.
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Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
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Thought is action in rehearsal.
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Be grateful for every word you can cut.
William Zinsser
Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.
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If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.
William Zinsser
