William Zinsser Quotes

65 quotes in 725 categories

• If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.
• Writing is thinking on paper.
• Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.
• Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
• To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
• I almost always urge people to write in the first person. ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.
• Be grateful for every word you can cut.
• Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
• Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors…
• 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…
• I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product…
• There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is…
• Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the…
• My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
• 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…
• Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.
• Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn't much help-taste is a quality so intangible that…
• Good writers are visible just behind their words.
• 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…
• Good writing is lean and confident.

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