Maxwell Perkins Quotes & Sayings

I think the novel is a wonder....it has vitality to an extraordinary degree, and glamour, and a great deal of underlying thought of unusual quality....And as for the sheer writing, it's astonishing. [About The Great Gatsby] — Maxwell Perkins

You are all right on time, except for the fact that time is the enemy of us all, and especially of the writer. — Maxwell Perkins

You can't know a book until you come to the end of it, and then all the rest must be modified to fit that. — Maxwell Perkins

Of the whole public not a handful can understand the artist's point of view or the writer's conscience. — Maxwell Perkins

It often puzzles me when people think that matters connected with sex ought to be suppressed. Sex itself cannot be suppressed, and the efforts to do it, it seems to me, result in greater damage than it can do itself. After all, it was not an invention of man, but of God. — Maxwell Perkins

Learn about writing from reading. That is the right way to do it. — Maxwell Perkins

Whenever any of these new writers come up who are brilliant, I always realize that you have more talent and more skill than any of them;---but circumstances have prevented you from realizing upon the fact for a long time. [About F. Scott Fitzgerald] — Maxwell Perkins

Editors are extremely fallible people, all of them. Don't put too much trust in them. — Maxwell Perkins

The book belongs to the author. — Maxwell Perkins

I do not think anyone can read War and Peace too much. I read it six times ... — Maxwell Perkins

I do not think you should read about writing while you are writing. — Maxwell Perkins

The amount of meaning you get into a sentence, the dimensions and intensity of the impression you make a paragraph carry, are most extraordinary.... You once told me you were not a natural writer - my God! You have plainly mastered the craft, of course; but you needed far more than craftsmanship for this. [about The Great Gatsby] — Maxwell Perkins

I believe the writer ... should always be the final judge. I have always held to that position and have sometimes seen books hurt thereby, but at least as often helped. The book belongs to the author. — Maxwell Perkins

Writing a novel is a very hard thing to do because it covers so long a space of time, and if you get discouraged it is not a bad sign, but a good one. If you think you are not doing it well, you are thinking the way real novelists do. I never knew one who did not feel greatly discouraged at times, and some get desperate, and I have always found that to be a good symptom. — Maxwell Perkins

Every good thing that comes is accompanied by trouble. — Maxwell Perkins

Writing, like drawing is an art, and whatever conveys the meaning is justified. — Maxwell Perkins

You have to throw yourself away when you write. — Maxwell Perkins

What we publishers think is that our function is to bring everything out into the open, on the theory that we have an adult population that knows values, or can learn them, and let them decide. — Maxwell Perkins

Anybody can find out if he is a writer. If he were a writer, when he tried to write of some particular day, he would find in the effort that he could recall exactly how the light fell and how the temperature felt, and all the quality of it. Most people cannot do it. If they can do it, they may never be successful in a pecuniary sense, but that ability is at the bottom of writing, I am sure. — Maxwell Perkins

If you are not discouraged about your writing on a regular basis, you may not be trying hard enough. Any challenging pursuit will encounter frequent patches of frustration. Writing is nothing if not challenging. — Maxwell Perkins

It is those people who know that they are right because some outside or higher power conveys the conviction to them who do the great damage in the world. — Maxwell Perkins