William Zinsser Quotes - Page 2

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

The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn't induce him to continue to the third sentence, it's equally dead.

Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.

Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.

Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.

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

All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.

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

Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.

If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

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

You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

Every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five - just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader's mind.

People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.

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.

Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.

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.

My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.

A clear sentence is no accident.

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

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 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.

When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.

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

Be grateful for every word you can cut.