Quote

Writing is hard work.

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
Work
Hard
Writing

More quotes by William Zinsser

Image
I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.
William Zinsser
Image
Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.
William Zinsser
Image
If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
William Zinsser
Image
Clutter is the disease of American writing.
William Zinsser
Image
If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
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
Be grateful for every word you can cut.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.
William Zinsser
Image
A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
William Zinsser
Image
Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.
William Zinsser
Image
A clear sentence is no accident.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.
William Zinsser
Image
All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.
William Zinsser
Image
Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
William Zinsser
Image
Eloquence invites us to bring some part of ourselves to the transaction.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.
William Zinsser
Image
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