William Zinsser Quotes

Writing is thinking on paper.

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

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.

Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank.

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.

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.

Thought is action in rehearsal.

Many writers are paralyzed by the thought that they are competing with everybody else who is trying to write and presumably doing it better.... Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Your only contest is with yourself.

Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?

A clear sentence is no accident.

If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen - editors, agents and publishers - whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not so high.

Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.

One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

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.

Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.

Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.

If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.

Clutter is the disease of American writing.

Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.

You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.

Writing is a craft not an art.

To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.

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.

The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.

I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.

The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.

People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.

There's no subject you don't have permission to write about. Students often avoid subjects close to their heart ... because they assume that their teachers will regard those topics as 'stupid.' No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. If you follow your affections you will write well and will engage your readers.

Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn't induce him to continue to the third sentence, it's equally dead.

All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don't keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one sentence to the next and from one paragraph to the next and from one section to the next, and that narrative - good old-fashioned storytelling - is what should pull your readers along without their noticing the tug.

Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.

Good writers are visible just behind their words.

Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.

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.

A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.

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.

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.

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.

The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do.

It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.

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

Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or a craft. Bach and Picasso didn't spring full-blown as Bach or Picasso; they needed models. This is especially true of writing.