20 INSPIRING QUOTES
FROM WILLIAM ZINSSER'S
"ON WRITING WELL"
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"The secret of good writing is to strip
every sentence to its cleanest
components.
Every word that serves no function, every
long word that could be a short word,
every adverb that carries the same
meaning that's already in the verb...these
are the thousand and one adulterants
that weaken the strength of a sentence."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p7)

"Writing is hard work.
A clear sentence is no accident. Very
few sentences come out right the
first time, or even the third time.
Remember this in moments of
despair.
If you find that writing is hard, it's
because it is hard."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p9)

"Writers are obviously at their most
natural when they write in the first
person. Writing is an intimate
transaction between two people,
conducted on paper, and it will go
well to the extent that it retains its
humanity."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p20)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p34)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p35)

"You learn to write by writing. It's a
truism, but what makes it a truism is
that it's true. The only way to learn to
write is to force yourself to produce a
certain amount of words on a regular
basis."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p49)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p52)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p54)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p64)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p77)

"Rewriting is the essence of writing
well: it's where the game is won or lost.
That idea is hard to accept. We all have
an 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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p83)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p91)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p100)

"My commodity as a writer, whatever
I'm writing about, is me. And your
commodity is you. Don't alter your
voice to fit your subject. Develop one
voice that readers will recognise when
they hear it on the page."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p231)

"But ultimately eloquence runs on a
deeper current. It moves us with what it
leaves unsaid, touching off echoes in what
we already know from our reading, our
religion and our heritage...It was no
accident that Lincoln's speeches
resounded with echoes of the King James
Bible; he knew it almost by heart from his
boyhood."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p238)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p242)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p261)

"Think small. Don't rummage around in
your past - or your family's past - to find
episodes that you think are 'important'
enough to be worthy of including in your
memoir. Look for small self-contained
incidents that are still vivid in your
memory. If you still remember them it's
because they contain a universal truth that
your readers will recognise from their own
life."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p291)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p297)

"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."
WILLIAM ZINSSER
"ON WRITING WELL"
(p298)

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