William Zinsser Quotes
Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. 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
Quotes to Explore
I was a confused young girl with so much tragedy. Sometimes when you're going through stuff, the last person you're thinking exists is God. I mean, it was my confusion, the anger that was in my heart, all that drama. But thank God I know God now, okay?
Tasha Smith
There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.
Beck
I was thinking as a little girl growing up that I would be there. When I look at whether we can go to Mars, it's definitely something we can do.
Mae Jemison
When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.
E. L. Doctorow
Music, first of all, is completely about abstraction, which is exactly what architecture is not. In a way, it has been incredibly constructive to know what true abstraction is. So you don't fall into the trap of thinking that what you do is abstract.
Rafael Vinoly
Instead of writing songs for girls, I tend to write albums, which I guess is a bit weird.
Ed Sheeran
Writing for me is quite a plastic form, a kind of mental sculpture, although that sounds weird. It acquires its character and its depth as it goes along.
Kate Atkinson
I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white, and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time, but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent, and I'm not your mommy; I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.
Aaron Sorkin
Medicine was certainly intended to be a career. I wanted to become a psychiatrist, an adolescent ambition which, of course, is fulfilled by many psychiatrists. The doctor/psychiatrist figures in my writing are alter egos of a kind, what I would have been had I not become a writer - a personal fantasy that I've fed into my fiction.
J. G. Ballard
Before I even knew what that half of my family did, I was interested in performing. I remember being seven years old and up on a stage and loving it. I've always adored it. Not just acting, but the whole process of writing and directing movies, everything that has to do with that part of life. Maybe it's in my blood.
Jack Huston
If the history of resistance to Darwinian thinking is a good measure, we can expect that long into the future, long after every triumph of human thought has been matched or surpassed by 'mere machines,' there will still be thinkers who insist that the human mind works in mysterious ways that no science can comprehend.
Daniel Dennett
I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.
James A. Michener
I have laughter dates with myself, where I find comics on YouTube and watch them. Louis C.K. was my first laughter date a couple years ago. I'll also watch those videos of people doing idiotic things. That cracks me up.
Inga Muscio
Nothing is not only nothing. It is also our prison.
Antonio Porchia
If this is indeed the alternative, we are in a tragic situation, compelled to choose between social righteousness and communion with God.
Walter Rauschenbusch
I am infinitely grateful to the life which privileged me.
Jacky Ickx
Grief has similar side effects of alcohol consumption, such as numbness, guilt, and depression, resulting in less alert and price-sensitive customers. In addition, the funeral industry is somewhat taboo in the sense that communities in general don't communicate with one another about what are acceptable practices in this industry.
Perianne Boring
Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. 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
