Zinsser Quotes & Sayings

[I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building, by their own efforts, the things they require. Whenever they find it possible to take advantage of the constructive labors of others, this is the path of least resistance. The plant does the work with its roots and its green leaves. The cow eats the plant. Man eats both of them; and bacteria (or investment bankers) eat the man ... — Hans Zinsser

What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they'll see things seriously. — William Zinsser

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

Writers and learners will write better and learn more if they understand the "why" of what they are studying. — William Zinsser

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

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

Don't fight such a current if it feels right. Trust your material if it's taking you into terrain you didn't intend to enter but where the vibrations are good. Adjust your style accordingly and proceed to whatever destination you reach. Don't become the prisoner of a preconceived plan. Writing is no respecter of blueprints. — William Zinsser

Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I'm coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that wont the game. — William Zinsser

Writing, I reminded them, can't be taught or learned in a vacuum. We must say to students in every area of knowledge: "This is how other people have written about this subject. Read it; study it; think about it. You can do it too." In many subjects, students don't even know that a literature exists - that mathematics, for instance, consists of more than right and wrong answers, that physics consists of more than right or wrong lab reports. I — William Zinsser

There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God. — William Zinsser

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

Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident ... Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold. — William Zinsser

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

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. — William Zinsser

Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it. — William Zinsser

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

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

Nobody told all the new computer writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they're writing fluently doesn't mean they're writing well. — William Zinsser

There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy--Normal mailer, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, William F. Buckley, Jr., Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers--that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you. — William Zinsser

Whenever I listen to an artist or an art historian I'm struck by how much they see and how much they know--and how much I don't.

Good art writing should therefore do at least two things. It should teach us how to look: at art, architecture, sculpture, photography and all the other visual components of our daily landscape. And it should give us the information we need to understand what we're looking at. — William Zinsser

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

The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis. — William Zinsser

If a good word already exists, there is no need to invent something painful. — William Zinsser

Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation. Be yourself when you write. If you're not a person who says 'indeed' or 'moreover,' or who calls someone an individual ('he's a fine individual'), please don't write it. — William Zinsser

If a philosophical writer cannot be followed, the difficulty of his subject can be placed only in mitigation of his offense, not in condonation of it. There are too many expert witnesses on the other side. — William Zinsser

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading. — William Zinsser

The constant desire to win is a very American kind of trouble. Less glamorous gains made along the way--learning, wisdom, growth, and confidence, dealing with failure--aren't given the same respect because they can't be given a grade. — William Zinsser

One of the saddest sentences I know is "I wish I had asked my mother about that." Or my father. Or my grandmother. Or my grandfather. As every parent knows, our children are not as fascinated by our fascinating lives as we are. — William Zinsser

Nouns now turn overnight into verbs. We target goals and we access facts. Train conductors announce that the train won't platform. A sign on an airport door tells me that the door is alarmed. Companies are downsizing. It's part of an ongoing effort to grow the business. "Ongoing" is a jargon word whose main use is to raise morale. We face our daily job with more zest if the boss tells us it's an ongoing project; we give more willingly to institutions if they have targeted our funds for ongoing needs. Otherwise we might fall prey to disincentivization. — William Zinsser

Eloquence invites us to bring some part of ourselves to the transaction. — William Zinsser

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

Mind in language are inseparable. If we violate our language we violate ourselves. — William Zinsser

I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow. — William Zinsser

Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience - every reader is a different person. — William Zinsser

Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose. — William Zinsser

The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction. — William Zinsser

But apart from these lazinesses of logic, what makes the story so tired is the failure of the writer to reach for anything but the nearest cliche'. "Shouldered his way," "only to be met," "crashing into his face," "waging a lonely war," "corruption that is rife," "sending shock waves," "New York's finest," - these dreary phrases constitute writing at its most banal. We know just what to expect. No surprise awaits us in the form of an unusual word, an oblique look. We are in the hands of a hack, and we know it right away, We stop reading. — William Zinsser

It's no fun to think about infinity and no cinche to write about it. Again, it helps to look for some human link. — William Zinsser

Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly can write clearly, about anything at all. — William Zinsser

Editors are licensed to be curious. — William Zinsser

Soon after you confront the matter of preserving your identity, another question will occur to you: "Who am I writing for?" It's a fundamental question, and it has a fundamental answer: You are writing for yourself. Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience - every reader is a different person. Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new. Don't worry about whether the reader will "get it" if you indulge a sudden impulse for humor. If it amuses you in the act of writing, put it in. (It can always be taken out, but only you can put it in.) You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for. If you lose the dullards back in the dust, you don't want them anyway. This — William Zinsser

Truth needs no adornment. — William Zinsser

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

People read with their ears, whether they know it or not, — William Zinsser

writing is a craft, not an art, and that the man who runs away from his craft because he lacks inspiration is fooling himself. — William Zinsser

Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like "enthralling" and "luminous." — William Zinsser

Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe. — William Zinsser

We have chosen to write the biography of our disease because we love it platonically - as Amy Lowell loved Keats - and have sought its acquaintance wherever we could find it. And in this growing intimacy we have become increasingly impressed with the influence that this and other infectious diseases, which span - in their protoplasmic continuities - the entire history of mankind, have had upon the fates of men. — Hans Zinsser

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon. — William Zinsser

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. — William Zinsser

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

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

I try to make what I have written tighter, stronger and more precise, eliminating every element that's not doing useful work. Then I go over it once more, reading it aloud, and am always amazed at how much clutter can still be cut. — William Zinsser

There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you. — William Zinsser

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

What we found developing at Gustavus Adolphus was a sense that we should all be sharing the responsibility for teaching writing. We formed a writing committee that consisted of professors from many different disciplines, and we invited proposals for 'W' courses from the entire faculty. The response was instantaneous. As soon as the ownership of writing by the English department was lost, people in other fields said, 'I'd be willing to give it a try. — William Zinsser

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

Simplify, simplify. — William Zinsser

It is possible that the artists are sane and the world they are painting is crazy. — William Zinsser

Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge. — William Zinsser

Writers are the custodians of memory, and that's what this chapter is about: how to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into. — William Zinsser

Never forget that you are practicing a craft with certain principles. — William Zinsser

Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga. — William Zinsser

Memoir is the art of inventing the truth. — William Zinsser

All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem. — William Zinsser

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

Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? — William Zinsser

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

You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want — William Zinsser

Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation. — William Zinsser

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

Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going. — William Zinsser

Some people write by day, others by night. Some people need silence, others turn on the radio. Some write by hand, some by typewriter or word processor, some by talking into a tape recorder. Some people write their first draft in one long burst and the revise; others can't write the second paragraph until they have fiddled endlessly with the first.

But all of them are vulnerable and all of them are tense. — William Zinsser

Probably no subject is too hard if people take the trouble to think and write and read clearly. — William Zinsser

Motivation clears the head faster than a nasal spray. — William Zinsser

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, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what - these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to the education and rank. — William Zinsser

I've singled out the humanities and the sciences because they are regarded as natural opposites, even natural enemies. But this is oversimplifying to make a point. Between English at one end of the spectrum and chemistry at the other are many subjects, like economics, that are a mystery to both camps. — William Zinsser

writing is a sanity-saving companion for people in times of grief, loss, illness, and other accidents of fate. — William Zinsser

Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, assessing a Polish crisis in 1984, said: "There's continuing ground for serious concern and the situation remains serious. The longer it remains serious, the more ground there is for serious concern. — William Zinsser

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid. — William Zinsser

Be wary of security as a goal. It may often look like life's best prize. Usually it's not. — William Zinsser

To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive. — William Zinsser

Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader. — William Zinsser

It is a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, "launder" became a dirty word. — William Zinsser

Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes. — William Zinsser

Throughout the early Christian period, every great calamity - famine, earthquake, and plague - led to mass conversions, another indirect influence by which epidemic diseases contributed to the destruction of classical civilization. Christianity owes a formidable debt to bubonic plague and to smallpox, no less than to earthquake and volcanic eruptions. — Hans Zinsser

I remember the language of the people I grew up with. Language was so important to them. All that power was in it. And grace and metaphor. Some of it was very formal and Biblical, because the habit is that when you have something important to say you go into parable, if you're from Africa, or you go into another level of language. I wanted to use language that way, because my feeling was that a black novel was not black because I wrote it, or because there were black people in it, or because it was about black things. It was the style. It had a certain style. It was inevitable. I couldn't describe it, but I could produce it. — William Zinsser

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

Don't annoy your readers by over-explaining--by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Try not to use words like "surprisingly," "predictably" and "of course," which put a value on a fact before the reader encounters the fact. Trust your material. — William Zinsser

Be true to yourself and to the culture you were born into. Tell your story as only you can. — William Zinsser

I don't like to write, but I take great pleasure in having written - in having finally made an arrangement that has a certain inevitability, like — William Zinsser

It wont do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't be careful enough. — William Zinsser

Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty. The sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and graceful boughs and frisky kittens and sleepy lagoons. — William Zinsser

I almost always urge people to write in the first person ... Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. — William Zinsser

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

I never think of him as a scholar assaulting me with how much he knows, but as a teacher eager to share a lifelong passion for the subject. — William Zinsser

Good writing is lean and confident. — William Zinsser

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. — William Zinsser

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

We write to find out what we know and what we want to say. — William Zinsser