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Writing is no respecter of blueprints.

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
Writing
Respecter
Blueprints

More quotes by William Zinsser

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Thought is action in rehearsal.
William Zinsser
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Clutter is the disease of American writing.
William Zinsser
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Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.
William Zinsser
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A writer is always working.
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I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
William Zinsser
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There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.
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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
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Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
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Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy the choice is ours.
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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There's no subject you don't have permission to write about. Students often avoid subjects close to their heart ... because they assume that their teachers will regard those topics as 'stupid.' No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. If you follow your affections you will write well and will engage your readers.
William Zinsser
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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
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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.
William Zinsser
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Writing is a craft not an art.
William Zinsser
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Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
William Zinsser
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Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
William Zinsser
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Good writing is lean and confident.
William Zinsser
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Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.
William Zinsser
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Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
William Zinsser
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Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.
William Zinsser