"You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into entertainment."

William Zinsser Literature See all quotes by William Zinsser →

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“If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for.”

“Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.”

“Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.”

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

“All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.”

“Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I find, by your Excellency's letter to General Sullivan, that you expect the enemy are going to evacuate New York, and that it is probable they are coming eastward. I can hardly think they mean to mak…"

— Nathanael Greene

Military1742–1786

#writing

"In 2016, candidate Trump gave Bob Costa and myself his definition of the job of president: "More than anything else, it's the security of our nation... That's number one, two and three... The military…"

— Bob Woodward

Politics1943

#writing

"When I'm not longer rappin', I want to open up an ice cream parlor and call myself Scoop Dogg."

— Snoop Dogg

Music1971

#writing

"The mind of a generation is its speech. A writer makes aspects of that speech enduring by putting them in print. He whittles at the words and phrases of today and makes of them forms to set the mind o…"

— John Dos Passos

Literature1896–1970

#writing