Zinsser Primer Quotes

The Thesaurus is to the writer what a rhyming dictionary is to
the songwriter - a reminder of all the choices - and you should use it with
gratitude. ~ William Zinsser

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

Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated. ~ William Zinsser

Good writing is good writing, whatever form it takes and whatever we call it. ~ William Zinsser

Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia. ~ 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

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

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

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 hope one of those books is a primer on etiquette. You seriously need a refresher."
"You're not queen yet, Eadlyn. Take it down a notch." He walked away, and I was furious with
myself for not getting the last word. ~ Kiera Cass

As a writer you must keep a tight rein on your subjective self - the traveler touched by new sights and sounds and smells - and keep an objective eye on the reader. ~ William Zinsser

Primer of Love [Lesson 40]
Always remember that you are absolutely unique.
Just like everyone else.
~ Margaret Mead

Lesson 40) Lovingly celebrate your partner's peculiarities.

You were brought up by two totally different dysfunctional families. No two sets of alcoholic parents are alike. You each come with your own tics, tacs and oddities. Lovingly accept these differences as aspects of your lover's uniqueness. An aspect is just the other side of the coin of some quality you already love about them. For instance is he barks whenever he urinates, this is simply an aspect of his need to guard over you and protect you from own worst enemy * yourself. If she yells out the name of a previous lover during an orgasm, this is just another aspect ofah, fuck it! * put the down pillow on her sorry face and suffocate the bitch. ~ Beryl Dov

Not every oak has to be gnarled. ~ 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

Simplify, simplify. ~ 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

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

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

A writer is always working. ~ William Zinsser

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity. ~ 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

The final advantage is the same that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like to write better than everyone else, you have to want to write better than everyone 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 are not as high. Too many writers are browbeaten into settling for less than their best. ~ William Zinsser

Good writing is lean and confident. ~ William Zinsser

Swell. Isn't there some kinda ghost primer in this joint: Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic, Ridding Yourself of Soul-Stealing Demons for Fun and Profit? Why isn't there ever anything useful around here?"
Mabel handed Sam a watercress sandwich.
"Thanks, Mabes. ~ Libba Bray

Infectious disease is one of the great tragedies of living things - the struggle for existence between two different forms of life... Incessantly, the pitiless war goes on, without quarter or armistice - a nationalism of species against species. ~ Hans Zinsser

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

The Archbishop [Thomas Becket] was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on the evening of the twenty-ninth of December. The body lay in the Cathedral all night, and was prepared for burial on the following day. The Archbishop was dressed in an extraordinary collection of clothes. He had on a large brown mantle; under it, a white surplice; below that, a lamb's-wool coat; then another woolen coat; and a third woolen coat below this; under this, there was the black, cowled robe of the Benedictine Order; under this, a shirt; and next to the body, a curious haircloth, covered with linen. As the body grew cold, the vermin that were living in this multiple covering started to crawl out, and as MacArthur quotes the chronicler: 'The vermin boiled over like water in a simmering cauldron, and the onlookers burst into alternate weeping and laughter. ~ Hans Zinsser

Writing and learning and thinking are the same process. ~ William Zinsser

This book might also be seen as "a Christian primer." A primer teaches us how to read. Reading is not just about learning to recognize and pronounce words, but also about how to hear and understand them. This book's purpose is to help us to read, hear, and inwardly digest Christian language without preconceived understandings getting in the way. ~ Marcus J. Borg

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

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

Much of my writing has taken the form of a pilgrimage: to sacred places that represent the best of America, to musicians and other artists who represent the best of their art. ~ William Zinsser

Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves, ~ 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

Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with "but." If that's what you learned, unlearn it - there's no stronger word at the start. It announces a total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change. ~ William Zinsser

Writing is thinking on paper ~ William Zinsser

Since I didn't have any world-class fencing skills, I kicked Cernunnos in the nuts again. I didn't have to know how to use a sword to do that, and he was standing there like he was asking for it, so it seemed justified. Shock and rage filled his green eyes all over again and he doubled. I guess there must be rules that people fighting gods usually followed. Next time, maybe someone would give me a primer. ~ C.E. Murphy

I like Catch-22, Gravity's Rainbow and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, for instance, because the authors of those three surrealistic novels - Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon and Robert Pirsig - invented their own rules, knowing that the old ones wouldn't do the job they had in mind. ~ William Zinsser

Synarchy and its Malcontents The purpose of this book is to provide a historical overview of secret societies and the threat they pose to the global population. It is not meant to purport any political overview, serve as an economic primer or foster xenophobic sentiment. The educated reader can, and likely will, come across suitable works in which he can make an informed viewpoint in this regard; and in all likelihood, he or she has already done so. But in researching this book, one particular strand tends to serve as a unifying factor behind the seeming disparity of these groups. That factor is that of a singular philosophy that seeks to construct a homogenized culture and governmental structure, wielding an inordinate and unassailable power, aided by the twin guardians of finance and cronyism. One in which dissent is silenced - by acts of violence if need be - by force, and control exerted over every aspect of its citizens lives, often unknowingly. ~ James Jackson

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. ~ William Zinsser

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

There's no sentence that's too short in the eyes of God. ~ 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