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One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
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
Mass
Nonfiction
Writing
Impose
Narrative
Shape
Tasks
Material
Shapes
Unwieldy
Materials
Underestimated
More quotes by William Zinsser
Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.
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All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
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No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief
William Zinsser
People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.
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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.
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Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
William Zinsser
Also bear in mind, when you're choosing your words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize.
William Zinsser
Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
William Zinsser
Not everybody has a talent for painting, or for the piano, or for dance. But we can write our way into the artist's head and into his problems and solutions. Or we can go there with another writer.
William Zinsser
Writing is no respecter of blueprints.
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Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.
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A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
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The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.
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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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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.
William Zinsser
Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.
William Zinsser
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.
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Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.
William Zinsser
Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.
William Zinsser
Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
