Quotes by William Zinsser

William Zinsser

A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.

Hard Work

Simple

Writing

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

Two

Writing

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

Writing

Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.

Abraham

Glory

Strong

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.

Fall

Together

Writing

Also bear in mind, when you’re choosing your words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize.

Eye

Mind

Reading

Although the frankfurter originated in Frankfurt, Germany, we have long since made it our own, a twin pillar of democracy along with Mom’s apple pie. In fact, now that Mom’s apple pie comes frozen and baked by somebody who isn’t Mom, the hot dog stands alone. What it symbolizes remains pure, even if what it contains does not.

Dog

Food

Mom

Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic’s quiver – words like “enthralling” and “luminous.”

Adjectives

Quiver

Space

But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.

Jobs

Old Job

People

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

Clear

Thinking

Writing

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Abraham

Adjectives

Anything Goes

Art

Artist

Asks

Be Kind

Being Yourself

Blueprints

Calling

Care

Celebrate

Character

Choices

Clear

Country

Crafts

Curious

Custodians

Cutting

Details

Detectives

Determination

Disease

Doe

Dog

Dust

Ears

Editors

Ego

Errors

Essence

Events

Eye

Facts

Fall

Firsts

Food

Fury

Games

Glory

Good Words

Good Writing

Hard

Hard Work

Humanity

Ifs

Important

Inspirational

Jargon

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by William Zinsser

William Zinsser

A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.

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.

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

Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.

Also bear in mind, when you’re choosing your words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize.

Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic’s quiver – words like “enthralling” and “luminous.”

But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.

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

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Topics by William Zinsser

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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