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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
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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
Reader
Question
Reading
Personalize
Next
Aliveness
Writing
Gimmicks
Good
Paragraph
Author
Keeps
More quotes by William Zinsser
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
A clear sentence is no accident.
William Zinsser
You learn to write by writing.
William Zinsser
Writing is hard work.
William Zinsser
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
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.
William Zinsser
It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
William Zinsser
Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
William Zinsser
One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you.
William Zinsser
Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
William Zinsser
If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.
William Zinsser
Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.
William Zinsser
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.
William Zinsser
The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
William Zinsser
Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.
William Zinsser
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
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
Good writers are visible just behind their words.
William Zinsser
