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Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.

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
Firsts
First
Writing
Periodic
Journal
Appears
Journalism

More quotes by William Zinsser

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Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.
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The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
William Zinsser
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Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
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Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.
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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.
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Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.
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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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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.
William Zinsser
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Writing is no respecter of blueprints.
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Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
William Zinsser
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People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.
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Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.
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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
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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.
William Zinsser
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Good writers are visible just behind their words.
William Zinsser
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All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.
William Zinsser
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Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
William Zinsser
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Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.
William Zinsser
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Writing is a craft not an art.
William Zinsser
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Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person who says 'indeed' or 'moreover,' or who calls someone an individual ('he's a fine individual'), please don't write it.
William Zinsser