William Zinsser Quotes

Less is more.

I'm often dismayed by the sludge I see appearing on my screen if I approach writing as a task--the d...

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

Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush a...

But on the question of who you're writing for, don't be eager to please.

It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If...

Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush a...

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

Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to re...

The final advantage is the same that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like t...

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word tha...

Good writing is good writing, whatever form it takes and whatever we call it.

It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If...

Don't annoy your readers by over-explaining--by telling them something they already know or can figu...

The reader is someone with an attention span of about 30 seconds.

Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's...

Beware, then, of the long word that's no better than the short word: "assistance" (help), "numerous"...

Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember the...

The writer, his eye on the finish line, never gave enough thought to how to run the race.

But apart from these lazinesses of logic, what makes the story so tired is the failure of the writer...

There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy--Normal mailer, Tom...

Mind in language are inseparable. If we violate our language we violate ourselves.

I never think of him as a scholar assaulting me with how much he knows, but as a teacher eager to sh...

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. Writing is an act of ego and you might as ...

Was the whole matter of aptitudes a myth – a copout used by people like me to avoid subjects that wo...

Not everybody has a talent for painting, or for the piano, or for dance. But we can write our way in...

Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.

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

Vulnerability has a strength of its own.

Writing can be taught or learned in the vacuum. We must say to students in every area of knowledge: ...

Writers who think THEY are being criticized when only that writing is being criticized are beyond a ...

If a philosophical writer cannot be followed, the difficulty of his subject can be placed only in mi...

Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can thr...

It's no fun to think about infinity and no cinche to write about it. Again, it helps to look for som...

Editors are licensed to be curious.

Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that a...

Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a differen...