the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. - William Zinsser

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the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

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About William Zinsser

William Knowlton Zinsser (born October 7, 1922 – May 12, 2015 ) was an American writer, editor, literary critic, and teacher. He began his career as a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune, where he worked as a feature writer, drama editor, film critic, and editorial writer, and has been a longtime contributor to leading magazines.

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Alternative Names: William Knowlton Zinsser
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Additional quotes by William Zinsser

Every writer is starting from a different point and is bound for a different destination. Yet 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.

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.

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