William Zinsser Quotes

William Knowlton Zinsser was an American writer, editor, literary critic, and teacher. He began his career as a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune, where he worked as a feature writer, drama editor, film critic and editorial writer. He was a longtime contributor to leading magazines.



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✵ 7. October 1922 – 12. May 2015
William Zinsser: 30   quotes 1   like

Famous William Zinsser Quotes

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 130.

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 21, A Writers Decisions: Organizing a Long Article, p. 254.

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 12, Writing About Yourself: The Memoir, p. 98.

“Good writing is lean and confident.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 114.

“We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 2, Simplicity, p. 7.

William Zinsser Quotes about learning

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 6, Words, p. 36.

“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.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 136.

William Zinsser Quotes

“Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 3, Clutter, p. 13

“Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 12, Writing About Yourself: The Memoir, p. 99.

“The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 7, Usage, p. 45.

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 8, Unity, p. 49.

“I've never heard anybody smile.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 10, Writing About People: The Interview, p. 74.

“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.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 20, Humor, p. 246.

“People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 11, Writing About Places: The Travel Article, p. 80.

“Probably the finest travel book ever written by an American is Walden, though Thoreau only went a mile out of town.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 11, Writing About Places: The Travel Article, p. 91.

“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.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 9, Nonfiction as Literature, p. 61.

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 4, Style, p. 21.

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

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 9, Nonfiction as Literature, p. 61.

“Be a writer. Write things down.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 10, Writing About People: The Interview, p. 70.

“You are writing for yourself.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 5, The Audience, p. 26.

“You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into entertainment.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 22, Write as Well as You Can, p. 276.

“Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 4, Style, p. 20.

“Good writers are visible just behind their words.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 4, Style, p. 23.

“It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 7, Usage, p. 47.

“If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway.”

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 5, The Audience, p. 26.

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