Quote

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

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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
Thinking
Whatever
Learn
Clarifies
Find
Organizes
Writing
Enables
Trying
Organize
Way
Subject
Make
Subjects
Think
Thoughts

More quotes by William Zinsser

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Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
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But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.
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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.
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You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?
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Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
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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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Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.
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If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.
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Every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five - just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader's mind.
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Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
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Thought is action in rehearsal.
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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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Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.
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Although the frankfurter originated in Frankfurt, Germany, we have long since made it our own, a twin pillar of democracy along with Mom's apple pie. In fact, now that Mom's apple pie comes frozen and baked by somebody who isn't Mom, the hot dog stands alone. What it symbolizes remains pure, even if what it contains does not.
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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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Clutter is the disease of American writing.
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Good writers are visible just behind their words.
William Zinsser
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Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.
William Zinsser
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Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
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Writing is thinking on paper.
William Zinsser