William Zinsser Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

  William Zinsser

  Be Kind, Kind

  6 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

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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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• 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

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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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• 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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• 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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• Be grateful for every word you can cut.

  William Zinsser

  Grateful, Writing, Cutting

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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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• 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

  12 Copy quote

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

  William Zinsser

  Principles, Crafts, Never Forget

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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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• 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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• 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

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

  William Zinsser

  Thinking, Ends, Fine Things

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• Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Learning, Thinking

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• 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

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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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• My commodity as a writer, whatever I'm writing about, is me. And your commodity is you. Don't alter your voice to fit the subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page, a voice that's enjoyable not only in its musical line but in its avoidance of sounds that would cheapen its tone: breeziness and condescension and clichés.

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Voice, Musical

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