William Zinsser Quotes - Page 2

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• 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?

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Thinking, Doe

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• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Teacher, Stupid, Writing

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• You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into an entertainment. Usually this means giving the reader an enjoyable surprise. Any number of devices will do the job.... These seeming amusements in fact become your 'style.' When we say we like the style of certain writers, what we mean is that we like their personality as they express it on paper.

  William Zinsser

  Jobs, Writing, Mean

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• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Believe, Writing, Ego

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• Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.

  William Zinsser

  Moving, Emotional, Rooms

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing, People, Want

  "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction". Book by William Zinsser (Chapter 12 "Writing About Yourself: The Memoir," p. 98), 1976.

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

  William Zinsser

  Writing, People, Perfection

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• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Men, Want

  "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction". Book by William Zinsser (Chapter 13 "Bits & Pieces," p. 136), 1976.

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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

  Art, Voice, Skins

  "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction". Book by William Zinsser (Chapter 13 "Bits & Pieces," p. 136), 1976.

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• 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

  Lonely, Writing, Good Day

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• All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.

  William Zinsser

  Editors, Want, Strive

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• Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

  William Zinsser

  Be Kind, Kind

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• Good writers are visible just behind their words.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Behinds, Visible

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.21, Harper Collins

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• Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.

  William Zinsser

  Reading, Writing, Today

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• Every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five - just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader's mind.

  William Zinsser

  Successful, Two, Mind

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• Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a different person.

  William Zinsser

  Life, Writing, Trying

  William Zinsser (2012). “On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction”, p.24, Harper Collins

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• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Pride, Sight

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• Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know.

  William Zinsser

  Trying, Knows, Asks

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• 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.

  William Zinsser

  Important, Firsts, Reader

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• Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person who says 'indeed' or 'moreover,' or who calls someone an individual ('he's a fine individual'), please don't write it.

  William Zinsser

  Being Yourself, Writing, Say Anything

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• Be grateful for every word you can cut.

  William Zinsser

  Grateful, Writing, Cutting

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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

  Interesting, Humanity, Ordinary

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• Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles.

  William Zinsser

  Principles, Crafts, Never Forget

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

  William Zinsser

  Soon Enough, Enough, Said

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• Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.

  William Zinsser

  Anything Goes, World

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