Quote

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

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

More quotes by William Zinsser

Image
Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.
William Zinsser
Image
Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.
William Zinsser
Image
Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.
William Zinsser
Image
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.
William Zinsser
Image
The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
William Zinsser
Image
Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.
William Zinsser
Image
Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is a craft not an art.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
William Zinsser
Image
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
William Zinsser
Image
Many writers are paralyzed by the thought that they are competing with everybody else who is trying to write and presumably doing it better.... Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Your only contest is with yourself.
William Zinsser
Image
What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.
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
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.
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
Image
Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
William Zinsser
Image
If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.
William Zinsser
Image
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.
William Zinsser
Image
All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.
William Zinsser