Quote

Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy the choice is ours.

William Zinsser

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Celebrate
Destroy
Writers
Choice
Choices
Write
Writing
Debunk
Affirm

More quotes by William Zinsser

Image
Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty. The sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and graceful boughs and frisky kittens and sleepy lagoons.
William Zinsser
Image
Noise is the typographical error and the poorly designed page...Ambiguity is noise. Redundancy is noise. Misuse of words is noise. Vagueness is noise. Jargon is noise.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.
William Zinsser
Image
To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
William Zinsser
Image
There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God.
William Zinsser
Image
Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.
William Zinsser
Image
Writing is thinking on paper.
William Zinsser
Image
A writer is always working.
William Zinsser
Image
Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
William Zinsser
Image
Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
William Zinsser
Image
I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.
William Zinsser
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.
William Zinsser
Image
Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
William Zinsser
Image
The sound of the bat is the music of spring training.
William Zinsser