William Zinsser - Reading Quotes

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But ultimately eloquence runs on a deeper current. It moves us with what it leaves unsaid, touching off echoes in what we already know from our reading, our religion and our heritage...It was no accident that Lincoln's speeches resounded with echoes of the King James Bible; he knew it almost by heart from his boyhood.

William Zinsser

Also bear in mind, when you're choosing your words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize.

William Zinsser

I try to make what I have written tighter, stronger and more precise, eliminating every element that's not doing useful work. Then I go over it once more, reading it aloud, and am always amazed at how much clutter can still be cut.

William Zinsser

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

William Zinsser

Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.

William Zinsser

Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good.

William Zinsser

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.

William Zinsser

Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.

William Zinsser