William Zinsser - Writer Quotes

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A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.

William Zinsser
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
You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into an entertainment. Usually this means giving the reader an enjoyable surprise. Any number of devices will do the job.... These seeming amusements in fact become your 'style.' When we say we like the style of certain writers, what we mean is that we like their personality as they express it on paper.

William Zinsser
Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind. New varieties sprout overnight, and by noon they are part of American speech.

William Zinsser
Writers are the custodians of memory, and that's what this chapter is about: how to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into.

William Zinsser
Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.

William Zinsser
This is a book by a writer who does some teaching, not a book by a teacher who does some writing, and one of the satisfactions of the craft is that there's always something new to learn.

William Zinsser
As a writer I try to operate within a framework of Christian principles, and the words that are important to me are religious words: witness, pilgrimage, intention.

William Zinsser
My commodity as a writer, whatever I'm writing about, is me. And your commodity is you. Don't alter your voice to fit your subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognise when they hear it on the page.

William Zinsser
Not being a writer, my father never worried about finding his "style." He just wrote the way he talked, and now, when I read his sentences, I hear his personality and his humor, his idioms and his usages, many of them an echo of his college years in the early 1900s. I also hear his honesty.

William Zinsser
Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia.

William Zinsser
Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty. The sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and graceful boughs and frisky kittens and sleepy lagoons.

William Zinsser
Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.

William Zinsser
Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader.

William Zinsser
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 the right method for you.

William Zinsser
The Period. There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

William Zinsser
You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want

William Zinsser
My roster of the new literature, in short, would include all the writers who come bearing new information and who present it with vigor, clarity and humanity.

William Zinsser
Many writers are paralyzed by the thought that they are competing with everybody else who is trying to write and presumably doing it better.... Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Your only contest is with yourself.

William Zinsser
The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.

William Zinsser
The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction.

William Zinsser
Pure nonsense is a joy forever, as Keats didn't quite say. I love to see a writer flying high, just for the hell of it.

William Zinsser
Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated.

William Zinsser