Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a l… - William Zinsser

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Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.

William Zinsser

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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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Good writing is lean and confident.

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No kind of writing lodges itself so deeply in our memory, echoing there for the rest of our lives, as the books that we met in our childhood.

And so, at last, I come to the one firm conviction that I mentioned at the beginning: it is that the subject is too new for final judgments.

Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know — and what we don’t know — about whatever we’re trying to learn.

Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don… - William Zinsser

About William Zinsser

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