Quote

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

William Zinsser

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Couldn
Style
Translator
Poor
Translators
Moving
Moves
Even
Clarity
Narrative
Kill

More quotes by William Zinsser

Image
Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
Image
Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
William Zinsser
Image
Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.
William Zinsser
Image
Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like enthralling and luminous.
William Zinsser
Image
Eloquence invites us to bring some part of ourselves to the transaction.
William Zinsser
Image
If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
Image
Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
William Zinsser
Image
Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
William Zinsser
Image
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.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
William Zinsser
Image
Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
William Zinsser
Image
I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
William Zinsser
Image
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