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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
Art
Crafts
Another
Eventually
Persons
Skin
Person
Skins
Imitated
Find
Models
Hesitate
Needs
Writer
Imitate
Every
Learning
Craft
Never
Voice
Shed
More quotes by William Zinsser
Clear thinking becomes clear writing one can't exist without the other.
William Zinsser
A clear sentence is no accident.
William Zinsser
Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with but. If that's what you learned, unlearn it - there's no stronger word at the start. It announces a total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change.
William Zinsser
Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind.
William Zinsser
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
William Zinsser
To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
William Zinsser
There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.
William Zinsser
People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like.
William Zinsser
Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.
William Zinsser
Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.
William Zinsser
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
William Zinsser
Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.
William Zinsser
My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
William Zinsser
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
The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.
William Zinsser
You learn to write by writing.
William Zinsser
There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
William Zinsser
If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
William Zinsser
Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
William Zinsser
