On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

by William Zinsser

Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.

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

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know.

I saw an ad for a boys’ camp designed to provide “individual attention for the minimally exceptional.”

When an Air Force missile crashed, it “impacted with the ground prematurely.”

It was during George W. Bush’s presidency that “civilian casualties” in Iraq became “collateral damage.”

Most first drafts can be cut by 50 percent without losing any information or losing the author’s voice.

Humor is best achieved by understatement, and there’s nothing subtle about an exclamation point.

Don’t start a sentence with “however”—it hangs there like a wet dishrag.

Don’t get caught holding a bag full of abstract nouns.

You’ll sink to the bottom of the lake and never be seen again.

Here’s a brilliant specimen I recently found: “Communication facilitation skills development intervention.” Not a person in sight, or a working verb. I think it’s a program to help students write better.

It’s condescending. (I stop reading writers who say “You see.”)