« All Writing Quotes · William Zinsser's Page
Best Writing Quotes by William Zinsser
- The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could…
- You learn to write by writing.
- A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.
- You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?
- 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.…
- Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.
- A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
- A writer is always working.
- Writers who think THEY are being criticized when only that writing is being criticized are beyond a teacher's reach. Writing can only be learned when…
- 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…
- Writing is a craft not an art.
- 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…
- The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components,
- Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your…
- 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…
- Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.
- 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…
- A clear sentence is no accident.
More Writing Quotes
- Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. — Hannah Arendt
- Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing. — Paul Auster
- I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn't until I was… — Paul Auster
- I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then… — Paul Auster
- When we were making the law, when we were writing the literature and the mathematics the grandfarthers of Blair and little Bush… — Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
- A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit. — Richard Bach
- In every song I write, whether it's a love song or a political song or a song about family, the one thing… — Billie Joe Armstrong
- I grew up in a working-class family, so I guess you could say I write from what I know. — Andrea Arnold
- Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. — Sholem Asch
- Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core… — Isaac Asimov
- If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. — Isaac Asimov
- Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not. — Isaac Asimov