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Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.

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
Must
Trying
Surprisingly
Constantly
Writers
Asks
Often

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The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.
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Writers are the custodians of memory, and that's what this chapter is about: how to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into.
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The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
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It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
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A writer is always working.
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Good writers are visible just behind their words.
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Writing is thinking on paper.
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Thought is action in rehearsal.
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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.
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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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Memoir isn't the summary of a life it's a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It's not it's a deliberate construction.
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People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.
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Writing is a craft not an art.
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When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.
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Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
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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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Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso they needed models. This is especially true of writing.
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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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Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.
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Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.
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