William Zinsser Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  William Zinsser

  Inspirational, Writing, Simplicity

  "Writing to Clients and Referring Professionals about Psychological Assessment". Book by J. B. Allyn (p. 164), 2012.

  26 Copy quote

• Writing is thinking on paper.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Thinking, Paper

  "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser, Introduction, (p. vii), 1976.

  53 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Hard Work, People

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.9, Harper Collins

  33 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Believe, Writing, Emotional

  8 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Reading, Writing, Easy

  29 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Thinking, Soul

  26 Copy quote

• Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.

  William Zinsser

  Stories, Want, Emotion

  William Zinsser “The Writer Who Stayed”, Paul Dry Books

  4 Copy quote

• The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Secret, Sentences

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.6, Harper Collins

  7 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Thinking, Ends, Fine Things

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Trying

  8 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Numbers, Purpose, Paper

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.12, Harper Collins

  12 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Marketing, Alive

  9 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Games, Details, Small Details

  10 Copy quote

• Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.

  William Zinsser

  Strong, Glory, Abraham

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Confused, Writing, Tired

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Errors, Marketing, Vagueness

  6 Copy quote

• 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, Thinking, Talking

  7 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing Well, Subjects, Products

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.5, Harper Collins

  10 Copy quote

• A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Two, People

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Fall, Writing, Sky

  5 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Jargon, Disease

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.6, Harper Collins

  34 Copy quote

• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Looks, Want, Facts

  William Knowlton Zinsser (1980). “On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, HarperCollins Publishers

  23 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Eye, Brain

  9 Copy quote

• Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Learning, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Numbers, Way

  William Knowlton Zinsser (1980). “On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, HarperCollins Publishers

  10 Copy quote

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