Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.
William Zinsser
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Found
Avenues
Persons
Subject
Person
Follow
Every
Ordinary
Subjects
Probably
Humanity
Interesting
Avenue
More quotes by William Zinsser
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
William Zinsser
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
Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.
William Zinsser
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
Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.
William Zinsser
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
Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
William Zinsser
Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
William Zinsser
Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person who says 'indeed' or 'moreover,' or who calls someone an individual ('he's a fine individual'), please don't write it.
William Zinsser
If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.
William Zinsser
One of the saddest sentences I know is I wish I had asked my mother about that. Or my father. Or my grandmother. Or my grandfather. As every parent knows, our children are not as fascinated by our fascinating lives as we are.
William Zinsser
Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
William Zinsser
All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
Clutter is the disease of American writing.
William Zinsser
Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
William Zinsser
Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to personalize the author.
William Zinsser
Thought is action in rehearsal.
William Zinsser
If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
