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The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.

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
Finally
Solutions
Puzzle
Writers
Arriving
Jobs
Solving
Like
Puzzles
Tremendous
Solution
Satisfaction

More quotes by William Zinsser

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Good writers are visible just behind their words.
William Zinsser
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Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
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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.
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Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.
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Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
William Zinsser
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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.
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To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
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Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.
William Zinsser
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Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.
William Zinsser
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There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
William Zinsser
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The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
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People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.
William Zinsser
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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.
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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.
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Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
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Although the frankfurter originated in Frankfurt, Germany, we have long since made it our own, a twin pillar of democracy along with Mom's apple pie. In fact, now that Mom's apple pie comes frozen and baked by somebody who isn't Mom, the hot dog stands alone. What it symbolizes remains pure, even if what it contains does not.
William Zinsser
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Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.
William Zinsser
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Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
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If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful.
William Zinsser
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The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
William Zinsser