“ I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters. ”
- James Albert Michener- Copy
- 996
“ Editor: a person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to seperate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed. ”
- Elbert Hubbard- Copy
- 446
“ An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better. ”
- T. S. Eliot- Copy
- 2.5K
“ An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff. ”
- Adlai E. Stevenson- Copy
- 2K
“ Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it, is the scholastic air any advantage? ”
- Henry David Thoreau- Copy
- 688
“ What I have crossed out I didn't like. What I haven't crossed out I'm dissatisfied with. ”
- Cecil B. De Mille- Copy
- 2.4K
“ Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. ”
- Samuel Johnson- Copy
- 854
“ I suppose some editors are failed writers; but so are most writers. ”
- T. S. Eliot- Copy
- 2.3K
“ Will you tell me my fault, frankly as to yourself, for I had rather wince, than die. Men do not call the surgeon to commend the bone, but to set it, Sir. ”
- Emily Dickinson- Copy
- 207
“ I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery. ”
- Kate Chopin- Copy
- 3.5K
“ Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, "How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?" and avoid "How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?". ”
- James Thurber- Copy
- 2.8K
“ Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often they operate a snack bar and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm. ”
- Thomas Griffith- Copy
- 3.9K
“ Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible. ”
- David Ogilvy- Copy
- 2.6K
“ I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. ”
- James Albert Michener- Copy
- 3.6K
“ Yes, in my books I do edit myself to keep from becoming the Village Explainer. ”
- Thomas Perry- Copy
- 1.1K
“ Editing is the same as quarreling with writers — same thing exactly. ”
- Harold Ross- Copy
- 2.7K
“ If they have a popular thought they have to go into a darkened room and lie down until it passes. ”
- Kelvin Mackenzie- Copy
- 3.9K
“ Words and sentences are subject to revision; paragraphs and whole compositions are subjects of prevision. ”
- Barrett Wendell- Copy
- 40
“ A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself. ”
- Marianne Moore- Copy
- 284
“ I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose. ”
- Ludwig van Beethoven- Copy
- 546
“ How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity that his intentions were good. ”
- Mark Twain- Copy
- 2.7K
“ The job of an editor in a publishing house is the dullest, hardest, most exciting, exasperating and rewarding of perhaps any job in the world. ”
- John Hall Wheelock- Copy
- 312
“ Anyone nit-picking enough to write a letter of correction to an editor doubtless deserves the error that provoked it. ”
- Alvin Toffler- Copy
- 3.9K
- 1
- 2