My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Writing is an intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper...” — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Mind in language are inseparable. If we violate our language we violate ourselves.” — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.” — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don't know. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“This fixation on the finished article causes writers a lot of trouble, deflecting them from all the earlier decisions that have to… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Not everybody has a talent for painting, or for the piano, or for dance. But we can write our way into the… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing… — William Zinsser Copy Share 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… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every words that serves no function, every… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
“But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every words that serves no function, every long word… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like "enthralling" and "luminous." — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence. — William Zinsser Copy Share 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… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image