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Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.
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
Person
Skins
Imitated
Find
Models
Hesitate
Needs
Writer
Imitate
Every
Learning
Craft
Never
Voice
Shed
Art
Crafts
Another
Eventually
Persons
Skin
More quotes by William Zinsser
Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.
William Zinsser
Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
William Zinsser
Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new.
William Zinsser
Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
Good writing is lean and confident.
William Zinsser
Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
William Zinsser
Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not.
William Zinsser
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
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
The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
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
What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously.
William Zinsser
Be grateful for every word you can cut.
William Zinsser
If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
William Zinsser
My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
William Zinsser
Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
William Zinsser
Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.
William Zinsser
You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want
William Zinsser
To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
William Zinsser
