Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.

- William Zinsser

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…

- William Zinsser

Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. A…

- William Zinsser

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

- William Zinsser

Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse…

- William Zinsser

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.

- William Zinsser

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

- William Zinsser

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

- William Zinsser

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

- William Zinsser