212 Quotes by William Zinsser

Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn’t much help-taste is a quality so intangible that it can’t even be defined. But we know it when we meet it.

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

What I want to do is to make people laugh so that they’ll see things seriously.

Memoir isn’t the summary of a life; it’s a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It’s not; it’s a deliberate construction.

Writers must constantly ask: what I am trying to say? Surprisingly often, they don’t know.

If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.

Rewriting is the essence of writing well – where the game is won or lost.

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

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.