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Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like enthralling and luminous.

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
Critics
Disproportionate
Space
Quiver
Words
Adjectives
Every
Ecstatic
Like
Luminous
Occupy
Critic
Avoid
Enthralling

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All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
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Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
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Writing is hard work.
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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
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Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia.
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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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The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
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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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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.
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Writing is thinking on paper.
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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.
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Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
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Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.
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Much of my writing has taken the form of a pilgrimage: to sacred places that represent the best of America, to musicians and other artists who represent the best of their art.
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What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.
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Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.
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I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
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Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.
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If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
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