Byline Quotes & Sayings

Still, more than all the implausible fluff, it was the advertisements-neat, clean, set off in a box in the middle of some mendacious tale-that were ductile for dreaming. However much it smacked of that hyperbole necessary for sales purposes, he nonetheless remained astounded and tickled by the imperturbable guarantee in the announcement of a product that existed, that could be bought, a product which was not, in sum, the figment of a journalist's imagination, a ruse invented for the sake of a byline. — Joris-Karl Huysmans

A lot of things appearing under my byline were written in one draft. But when I started to write poetry, I started getting fussy about every syllable. I wouldn't allow the work to be seen unless it felt perfect. Not clunky at all, no clunky syllables. So, really, for the printed page, it had to have a feeling of rhythmic and syntactic verisimilitude or something. — Richard Meltzer

If editors truly want to improve their byline ratio, they need to stop lamenting the fact that few women journalists send them cold pitches and start taking a hard look at their stable of regular contributors. How many women are on the masthead? How many women columnists or bloggers are on the payroll? This is how real change is going to happen. — Ann Friedman

I am a huge fan of using social media to connect with people because I think there was this 'ivory tower' aspect of journalism where people might read a byline for years but have no idea about the person who was behind it and never get to communicate with them or ask them a question. — Sarah Lacy

The first article carrying Vonnegut's byline, 'This Business of Whistle Purchasing,' a lighthearted criticism of a school fund-raiser, was submitted at the urging of his sophomore English teacher. — Charles J. Shields

The August 1 story had carried their joint byline; the day afterward, Woodward asked Sussman if Bernstein's name could appear with his on the follow-up story - though Bernstein was still in Miami and had not worked on it. From the on, any Watergate story would carry both names. Their colleagues melded the two into one and gleefully named their byline Woodstein.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

A writer wasn't a body, just a byline. My words would be sharp and spiky, punchy and pointed; my stories would be swift and lean, sleek and enviable, moving fast and hitting hard. I would not, I vowed, write like a fat girl. — Jennifer Weiner

A writer must get beyond the thrill of a byline, plunge deeper than the words themselves, and dive head-on into a bottomless pit where all the good stories are swimming around waiting to be rescued from the soul."
Kathleen M. Rodgers ~ 1998 — Kathleen M. Rodgers

The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline; he gets notices all over the world and so forth; but they're really - the important people are the people he photographs. — Gordon Parks

If Bill Finger created Batman, where is Bill Finger's byline on my strip? It is conspicuous by its absence. — Bob Kane

A reader should be able to identify a column without its byline or funny little picture on top purely by look or feel, or its turgidity ratio. — William Safire

The byline is a replacement for many other things, not the least of them money. If someone ever does a great psychological profile of journalism as a profession, what will be apparent will be the need for gratification - if not instant, then certainly relatively immediate. Reporters take sustenance from their bylines; they are a reflection of who you are, what you do, and why, to an uncommon degree, you exist ... A journalist always wonders: If my byline disappears, have I disappeared as well? — David Halberstam