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William Zinsser

William Zinsser Quotes

Writer

William Zinsser was an American writer renowned for his concise, clear, and humorous writing style. His works spanned a variety of fields including literature, history, and practical writing, with his most famous titles being 'On Writing Well' and 'American Writing'. Zinsser's writing style has had a profound impact on modern writing.

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All Writing Ifs Reader Want Sentences Thinking People Written Knows Trying Write Writer Writing Well Hard On Writing Writes Art On Writing Well Reading Subjects

Famous William Zinsser Quotes

“Writing is such a lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up.”

Writing Written Lonely Writer Writers Write On Writing Wrote On Writing Well Wrights

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Don't start a sentence with “however”—it hangs there like a wet dishrag. And don't end with “however”—by that time it has lost its howeverness.”

Writing However William Rag Zinsser

Book:ON WRITING WELL : THE CLASSIC GUIDE TO WRITING NONFICTION

Source: ON WRITING WELL : THE CLASSIC GUIDE TO WRITING NONFICTION

“Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I'm coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that wont the game.”

Writing Written Writer Editing Write On Writing Edit Wrote Editor On Writing Well The Writing Process The Editing Process

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Beware, then, of the long word that's no better than the short word: "assistance" (help), "numerous" (many), "facilitate" (ease), "Individual" (man or woman), "remainder" (rest), "initial" (first), "implement" (do), "sufficient" (enough), "attempt" (try), "referred to as" (called), and hundreds more. Beware of all the slippery new fad words: paradigm and parameter, prioritize and potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write. Don't dialogue with someone you can talk to. Don't interface with anybody.”

Writing Writer Write Writing Advice Writes

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Don't annoy your readers by over-explaining--by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Try not to use words like "surprisingly," "predictably" and "of course," which put a value on a fact before the reader encounters the fact. Trust your material.”

Writing Written Writer Writers Write On Writing Writes The Writing Life On Writing Well

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't be careful enough.”

Writing Writer Writing Process Write Writing Advice On Writing Writes

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“...being "rather unique" is no more possible than being rather pregnant.”

Writing Writer Writers Write Writing Advice On Writing Writes On Writing Well

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy--Normal mailer, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, William F. Buckley, Jr., Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers--that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you.”

Writing Motivation Written Writer Writers Write Writing Advice Writers Life On Writing Writes Wrote On Writing Well

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Vulnerability has a strength of its own.”

Writing Written Strength Vulnerable Vulnerability Writer Write Written Word Writes Wrote

Author:William Zinsser

“It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't been careful enough”

Writing Writer Nonfiction Write On Writing How To Write Writes

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“But apart from these lazinesses of logic, what makes the story so tired is the failure of the writer to reach for anything but the nearest cliche'. "Shouldered his way," "only to be met," "crashing into his face," "waging a lonely war," "corruption that is rife," "sending shock waves," "New York's finest," - these dreary phrases constitute writing at its most banal. We know just what to expect. No surprise awaits us in the form of an unusual word, an oblique look. We are in the hands of a hack, and we know it right away, We stop reading.”

Writing Writer Write Writing Advice On Writing Writes On Writing Well

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“I'm often dismayed by the sludge I see appearing on my screen if I approach writing as a task--the day's work--and not with some enjoyment.”

Writing Written Writer Writers Write Writing Advice On Writing Writes Wrote On Writing Well

Book:On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“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 readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Stills Self Bigs Remember Memories Wind Reader Findings Our Family Theme Vivid Incidents Our Memories Saga Self Contained

Book:Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past

Source: Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past

“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 and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.”

Ifs Writing Believe Wells Use Might Energy Opinion Identity Pure Ego Believe In You Willpower

Author:William Zinsser

“Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.”

Writing Wells Games Lost Essence Rewriting Writing Well

Author:William Zinsser

“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 equity in our first draft; we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.”

Writing Firsts Believe Wells Ideas Hard Games Lost Born Perfect Accepting Emotional Percent Essence Odds Equity Rewriting Writing Well

Author:William Zinsser

“Writing is no respecter of blueprints.”

Writing Blueprints

Book:On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Not everybody has a talent for painting, or for the piano, or for dance. But we can write our way into the artist's head and into his problems and solutions. Or we can go there with another writer.”

Way Writing Problem Artist Talent Painting Solutions Piano Problems And Solutions

Author:William Zinsser

“Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.”

Writing Looks Lasts Fall Steps Pieces Sky Paper Overcoming Something New Territory Blank Last Time New You

Author:William Zinsser

“No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief”

People Writing Important Running Risk Willing Originals Misunderstood Mischief Being Misunderstood

Author:William Zinsser

“One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.”

Writing Materials Shapes Mass Tasks Narrative Nonfiction Underestimated

Author:William Zinsser

“Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.”

Thinking Knows Way Writing Trying Subjects Organize Our Thoughts

Author:William Zinsser

“Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away.”

Writing Trying Reader Commit Being Yourself Get Away Overboard Writing Well

Author:William Zinsser

“All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.”

Writing Problem Writing Well

Author:William Zinsser

“Writing is hard work.”

Writing Hard Hard Work

Author: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.”

People Writing Firsts Wells Persons Two Humanity Natural Paper Relaxed First Person Transactions

Author:William Zinsser

“All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don't keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one sentence to the next and from one paragraph to the next and from one section to the next, and that narrative - good old-fashioned storytelling - is what should pull your readers along without their noticing the tug.”

Ifs Should Writing Together Remember Fall Next Clear Reader Logic Sentences Storytelling Narrative Tension Sections Old Fashioned Falling Apart Noticing Paragraph Linear Glue One Sentence

Author:William Zinsser

“Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Doe Asks Answers Interesting Talking Land Elegant Vivid Most Interesting Stylist People Talking

Author: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.”

Writing Reading Next Reader Paragraph Good Writing Gimmicks

Book:On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen - editors, agents and publishers - whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not so high.”

Ifs Want Writing May Different Written Willing Pride Standards Sight Details Various Crafts Agents Editors Smallest Publishers Obsessive Middlemen

Author:William Zinsser

“If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.”

People Ifs Want Writing

Author:William Zinsser

“Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.”

Writing Firsts Journalism Journal

Author:William Zinsser

“Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.”

Writing Eye Chance Brain Visuals Paragraph Short Writing

Author:William Zinsser

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

Writing Has Beens Today Reading Written Habit Imitation

Author: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.”

Writing Trying Forget Competition Pace Competing Contests Paralyzed

Author:William Zinsser

“Much of my writing has taken the form of a pilgrimage: to sacred places that represent the best of America, to musicians and other artists who represent the best of their art.”

Writing Art America Form Artist Taken Musician Sacred Pilgrimage Sacred Places

Author:William Zinsser

“Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person who says 'indeed' or 'moreover,' or who calls someone an individual ('he's a fine individual'), please don't write it.”

Ifs Writing Persons Individual Fine Please Conversation Being Yourself Say Anything

Author:William Zinsser

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

Writing Reading White

Author:William Zinsser

“The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do.”

Men Way Want Writing Kind Study He Man Men And Women Best Way

Author:William Zinsser

“There's no subject you don't have permission to write about. Students often avoid subjects close to their heart ... because they assume that their teachers will regard those topics as 'stupid.' No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. If you follow your affections you will write well and will engage your readers.”

Ifs Writing Wells Heart Life Is Teacher Subjects Stupid Students Reader Areas Regard Assuming Affection Permission Topics

Author:William Zinsser

“To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.”

Writing Art Ideas Half Events Shapes Memoir Narrative Remembered Editors Inventing Imposing

Author:William Zinsser

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

Writing Choices Celebrate

Book:The Writer Who Stayed

Source: The Writer Who Stayed

“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.”

Ifs Men Writing Trying Kind Wanted Reading Figures He Man Men And Women Imitation

Book:On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.”

People Ifs Thinking Writing Trying Seems Lonely Assuming Strikes Good Day

Author: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.”

Way Giving Writing Mean Facts Jobs Certain Numbers Style Personality Reader Paper Surprise Entertainment Devices Amusement Enjoyable Seeming

Author:William Zinsser

“Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.”

People Writing Realizing Style Excess

Book:On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.”

Writing Wells Mean Essence Ease Enjoyment Mail Rewriting Writing Well

Author:William Zinsser

“Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.”

Writing Hard Fun Easy Lonely

Book:On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“If writing seems hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things people do.”

People Ifs Writing Hard Seems Perfection Hardest Hardest Thing Writers And Writing

Author:William Zinsser

“Writing is thinking on paper.”

Thinking Writing Paper

Author:William Zinsser

About the Author

Born: October 7, 1922
Died: May 12, 2015
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 150

Related Topics

Writing Ifs Reader Want Sentences Thinking People Written Knows Trying Write Writer Writing Well Hard On Writing Writes Art On Writing Well Reading Subjects

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing NonfictionRelated source material

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing NonfictionRelated source material

On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing NonfictionRelated source material

Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the PastRelated source material

The Writer Who StayedRelated source material

ON WRITING WELL : THE CLASSIC GUIDE TO WRITING NONFICTIONRelated source material

Spring TrainingRelated source material

Worlds of Childhood: The Art and Craft of Writing for ChildrenRelated source material

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