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Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.

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
Kill
Couldn
Style
Poor
Translator
Moving
Translators
Even
Moves
Clarity
Narrative

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Clutter is the disease of American writing.
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My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
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Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.
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All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
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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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Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso they needed models. This is especially true of writing.
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Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn't much help-taste is a quality so intangible that it can't even be defined. But we know it when we meet it.
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Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.
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Writing is a craft not an art.
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Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
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To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
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Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
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A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The sound of the bat is the music of spring training.
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Thought is action in rehearsal.
William Zinsser
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The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.
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Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like enthralling and luminous.
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