Editor Quotes & Sayings

If my dream comes true,
Is truth then only a dream? — Rob Bignell, Editor

When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money. It other words, the stuff of great books. — Betsy Lerner

and he became a communist. He was court-martialed but allowed to resign from the army. In the revolutions of 1848 he fought to overthrow his king and, failing, fled to America. There he became first a carpenter and then the editor of a German-language newspaper in Cincinnati with a slant so leftist he earned the nickname "Reddest of the Red." When the Civil War came, Willich recruited fifteen hundred Cincinnati Germans within a matter of hours and helped organize the Ninth Ohio-now marching with the XIV Corps. — Steven E. Woodworth

I tend to overwrite; I need a good editor. — Wolf Blitzer

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response. — David Bergen

Arthur followed Ford's finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn't register, then his mind nearly blew up. "What? Harmless? Is that all it's got to say? Harmless! One word!" Ford shrugged. "Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book's microprocessors," he said, "and no one knew much about the Earth, of course." "Well, for God's sake, I hope you managed to rectify that a bit." "Oh yes, well, I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement." "And what does it say now?" asked Arthur. "Mostly harmless, — Douglas Adams

[To the editor of the Harlan, Kentucky, Daily Enterprise, as a kindergartener:] I know everything that goes on in this town, and if you give me a job so will you. — Maxine Cheshire

The border between editing and ghostwriting is, at its extremes, a bit porous. An editor really improves and sometimes restructures a manuscript and suggests changes. — Judith Thurman

I want to try and be as involved in the art of filmmaking as possible. I feel that the only way to really do that is to take on as many roles as possible, whether it be as an actor, an editor, a director, a cinematographer. — Joe Swanberg

Passion for books is the most important thing in being an editor/translator. Work with love. — Listiana Srisanti

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

After more than a decade as the editor of 'Wired' magazine, Chris Anderson started the company of his dreams - a robotics manufacturing company called 3D Robotics - to produce the autonomous flying vehicles coming out of DIY Drones. — Peter Diamandis

Every reporter who came up in legacy media can tell you about a come-to-Jesus moment when an editor put them up against a wall and tattooed a message deep into their skull: show respect for the fundamentals of the craft, or you would not soon be part of it. — Mary Karr

I think every writer should have tattooed backwards on his forehead, like ambulance on ambulances, the words 'everybody needs an editor. — Michael Crichton

When accepting the American Film Institute Life Achievement award: I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat (Patricia Hitchcock), and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville. — Alfred Hitchcock

I love the auditioning process. I love working with the technical guys. I absolutely love the editing room. That was completely fascinating to me, working with an editor in crafting the thing into something you had in your head. — Neil Gaiman

I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge. — Vikram Seth

An editor named Kerrie Hughes wanted me to write a short story that brought my fire-spider Smudge from my goblin books into the present-day world. I came up with libriomancy as a way to make that happen. — Jim C. Hines

I got married three days after graduation, and the first thing I did what I was expected to do which was to work on a small newspaper. So we were in Chicago where my husband worked for the Chicago Sun-Times and we were having dinner with his editor and he said 'So what are you 'gonna do honey?' and I said 'I'm going to work on a newspaper', and he said 'I don't think so, because Newspaper Guild regulations said that I couldn't work on the same newspaper as my husband. — Madeleine Albright

It generally takes me about nine months from the point the book is conceived to the point my editor sends it off to be typeset. — Julia London

It's always the paragraphs I loved most, the ones I tenderly polished and re-read with pride, that my editor will suggest cutting. — Liane Moriarty

The wretchedness of being rich is that you live with rich people. To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.
-Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) US-English essayist, editor, anthologist — Logan Pearsall Smith

Data matters. It's the very essence of what we care about. Personal data is not equivalent to a real person - it's much better. It takes no space, costs almost nothing to maintain, lasts forever, and is far easier to replicate and transport. Data is worth more than its weight in gold - certainly so, since data weighs nothing; it has no mass. Data about a person is not as valuable as the person, but since the data is so much cheaper to manage, it's a far better investment. Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, points out that a user's data can be purchased for about half a cent, but the average user's value to the Internet advertising ecosystem is estimated at $1,200 per year. Data's value - its power, its meaning - is the very thing that also makes it sensitive. The more data, the more power. The more powerful the data, the more sensitive. So the tension we're feeling is unavoidable. — Eric Siegel

She first one on the production team to die will be the editor. — Alexandra Oliva

I think there are probably a handful of real character actors in this business. The rest of us are recycling. So now I'm Sam Malone the editor. I'm Sam Malone the billionaire. — Ted Danson

When the war was over and the guys were back to shaving every day, the editor thought the Beetle Bailey strips were hurting their disciplinary efforts to get the guys back to routine. — Mort Walker

I never wanted to be an editor. I never wanted to be a boss. I just wanted to write, and it didn't make any difference whether it was fiction or nonfiction or short stories or whatever. I just - that's what I was destined to do. — Frank Deford

An early editor characterized my books as 'romantic comedy for intelligent adults.' I think people see them as funny but kind. I don't set out to write either funny or kind, but it's a voice they like, quirky like me ... And you know, people like happy endings. — Elinor Lipman

In terms of age, I think I've covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel - and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people! — Bruce Coville

A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much. — Irwin Shaw

In film, you're so much in the hands and at the mercy of the editor, so sometimes it's good to watch it just to see how it turns out - it can be so different than how you imagined it. But sometimes it's better to just let it go for your own sense of self worth. — Finn Wittrock

We're more interested in the editor of this Astounding Science Fiction. General Groves sent me to ask that someone who knows more about this work you're doing interview this" - he glanced at a card - "John W. Campbell. — Gregory Benford

I have an editor in my head, that's why I can't read Harry Potter, because Rowling is such a lousy writer. — Colleen McCullough

But human deciding what to eat without professional guidance - something they have been doing with notable success since coming down out of the trees - is seriously unprofitable if you're a food company, a definite career loser if you're nutritionist, and just plain boring if you're a newspaper editor or reporter. — Michael Pollan

'The New York Times' list is a bunch of crap. They ought to call it the editor's choice. It sure isn't based on sales. — Howard Stern

I was a writer for 'New York' magazine. I had been to business school, but what did I know? Still, everybody from the receptionists on up to the editor would ask me what they should do with their money. — Andrew Tobias

I was the editor of the school newspaper and in drama club and choir, so I was not a popular girl in the traditional sense, but I think I was known for being relatively scathing. — Tina Fey

As a cartoonist I do what I find funny. As an editor I have a broader approach realizing that humor is inherently subjective and I don't want my preferences to rule out what others might like. — Robert Mankoff

An editor is the uncrowned king of an educated democracy. — William Thomas Stead

For 10 years, I'd been working as a freelance writer and editor, making money but not a living. It was a good arrangement family-wise, allowing me to stay home with our daughter, but not so great financially or, sometimes, ego-wise. — Will Allison

the editor-in-chief of Screw Machine Engineering, a magazine whose name a hyphen would have improved. In — John McPhee

The image of the copy editor is of someone who favours a rigid consistency, a mean person who enjoys pointing out other people's errors, a lowly person who is just starting on her career in publishing and is eager to make an impression, or, at worst, a bitter, thwarted person who wanted to be a writer and instead got stuck dotting the i's and crossing the t's and otherwise advancing the careers of other writers. — Mary Norris

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counselling 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

From 1999 through 2001, I was an editor at a now-defunct magazine about the media industry called 'Brill's Content' that eventually merged with a now-defunct website about the media industry called Inside. — Hanya Yanagihara

Scandal has a thousand stringers; good news doesn't know the editor's phone number. — William Raspberry

I think it's especially important for an editor to say what he's enjoying. For a novelist to be told, midstream, what he's doing right can actually influence the unwritten parts of a novel in a positive way - praise helps a writer know what's good about what he's written, what's interesting and exciting, and what to work for in writing the conclusion. — Donna Tartt

I had sent [the magazine] a batch of poems which they turned down flat. I was furious. Floss [my wife] said, 'If I were the editor of that magazine *I* would turn down what *you* sent.' So *she* picked a batch and they accepted them *all*. — William Carlos Williams

I think even if you're on a screen or you're in a play, it's always a group effort. It's not just the actors, it's the editor. — Stockard Channing

And so in addition to lots of reading, the life of an editor involves constantly trying to get others to read as well. — Keith Gessen

About a year after (my stories began being published), magazine editor George Scithers, suggested to me that since I was so new at being published, I must be very close to what I had to learn to move from fooling around with writing to actually producing professional stories. There are a lot of aspiring writers out there who would like to know just that. Write that book.SFWW-I is that book. It's the book I was looking for when I first started writing fiction. — Barry B. Longyear

Filmmaking has always involved pairs: a director coupled with a producer, a director alongside an editor ... The notion of couples is not foreign to cinema. — Luc Dardenne

I say, they [those at the top] don't have to conspire, because they all think alike. The president of General Motors and the president of Chase Manhattan Bank really are not going to disagree much on anything, nor would the editor of the New York Times disagree with them. They all tend to think quite alike, otherwise they would not be in those jobs. — Gore Vidal

I didn't approve of murder on general principles. Not even of people who seemed to go around begging for it. — Josh Lanyon

What about feedback you've received about your leadership style over the years? Years ago, an executive editor of mine said, "You should count the number of times you praise somebody and then double that." Even the toughest, steeliest writer or editor often really wants to be told, "Hey, that was a great piece." Early in my career as a manager, it probably took me a while to realize that everybody wants that. It's just a human need. — Anonymous

Why isn't the manuscript ready? Because every book is more work than anyone intended. If authors and editors knew, or acknowledged, how much work was ahead, fewer contracts would be signed. Each book, before the contract, is beautiful to contemplate. By the middle of the writing, the book has become, for the author, a hate object. For the editor, in the middle of editing, it has become a two-ton concrete necklace. However, both author and editor will recover the gleam in their eyes when the work is completed, and see the book as the masterwork it really is. — Samuel S. Vaughan

Just recieved my manuscript from the editor and he didn't change a word. The word he didn't change was the. — Roy A. Higgins

And yet I wasn't sure what his weakness was. We all do that as we get to know someone. Like a tabloid editor, we search for both greatness and weakness, jotting down notes in our heads for future exploitation. We are never comfortable with those who have no visible flaw. — Wayne Elise

I got that experience through dating dozens of men for six years after college, getting an entry level magazine job at 21, working in the fiction department at Good Housekeeping and then working as a fashion editor there as well as writing many articles for the magazine. — Judith Krantz

I have great editors, and I always have. Somehow, great editors ask the right questions or pose things to you that get you to write better. It's a dance between you, your characters, and your editor. — Patricia MacLachlan

I thought 'UnSouled' would come in at around 400 pages, but it took 650 pages, and even then I felt like I was rushing the conclusion, so I asked my editor and publisher if I could divide it again. So a sequel became a trilogy, and the trilogy became a tetralogy - although we're not calling it that. — Neal Shusterman

As a result of its investigation, the NIH said that to qualify for funding, all proposals for research on human subjects had to be approved by review boards - independent bodies made up of professionals and laypeople of diverse races, classes, and backgrounds - to ensure that they met the NIH's ethics requirements, including detailed informed consent. Scientists said medical research was doomed. In a letter to the editor of Science, one of them warned, When we are prevented from attempting seemingly innocuous studies of cancer behavior in humans ... we may mark 1966 as the year in which all medical progress ceased. — Rebecca Skloot

I had a great editor, Rebecca Corbett, from the time I was a city reporter right through to the years I worked on the 'Sun's' enterprise reporting team. — David Simon

One of my first jobs was at the Boston Globe. I worked in the sports department six months a year. When I was ready to graduate, the sports editor gave me a job as a schoolboy sports writer. — Will McDonough

That is an editor. He is trying to think of a word. He props his feet on a chair, which is the editor's way; then he can think better. I do not care much for this one; his ears are not alike; still, editor suggests the sound of Edward, and he will do. I could make him better if I had a model, but I made this one from memory. But is no particular matter; they all look alike, anyway. They are conceited and troublesome, and don't pay enough. — Mark Twain

I didn't do a masters in creative writing until I was 26, which is quite old, and then I found myself in New York and I needed money, so I started working full time as an editor. — Rachel Kushner

I gave my archive to Emory University because there's a really dear friend who teaches there, Rudolph Byrd, and he's the editor. — Alice Walker

Not too many people know who the editor is. — Julius Schwartz

I write about people I think are interesting, and then I discuss it with my editor, and she decides if she thinks it will be interesting to children as well. If I have no great interest in the subject, I find the work to be terribly boring. And if I find the person interesting, I love the research part and, by extension, the writing as well. — David A. Adler

A specific editor in a specific place likes the book, and you're in. A different editor on a different day goes, 'Oh, this isn't for me', or doesn't even look at it, and that's it. — Adrian McKinty

If I dropped a feather, Hanson would hear it. I should mention that Hanson is a hypochondriac mess of a nerd who can't stand loud music of any type? No? Well, there you have it. My life. It's been three weeks since I officially started working as a junior editor at the Daily Scandal and I've already contemplated quitting more than once, but the truth is I need the money badly and the people here are all cool and supportive. — Alison Foster

[E]verything is fiction. When you tell yourself the story of your life, the story of your day, you edit and rewrite and weave a narrative out of a collection of random experiences and events. Your conversations are fiction. Your friends and loved ones - they are characters you have created. And your arguments with them are like meetings with an editor - please, they beseech you, you beseech them, rewrite me. You have a perception of the way things are, and you impose it on your memory, and in this way you think, in the same way that I think, that you are living something that is describable. When of course, what we actually live, what we actually experience - with our senses and our nerves - is a vast, absurd, beautiful, ridiculous chaos. — Keith Ridgway

Even the pool of ink could be dried out and writing papers could be burnt to ashes forever but the spoken word will never die so as the editor. — Euginia Herlihy

The editor will be an extension of your hand; the keys will sing as they slice their way through text and thought. — Andrew Hunt

I was a book editor for nine years. I'm familiar with the opposite experience, bracing myself for the likelihood that no one would want to publish my book. — Karen Thompson Walker

In my second year of Harvard Divinity School, where I was studying to be a minister like my father, I met a guy named Robert Cox, who had been the editor of the Buenos Aires Herald during the Dirty War in Argentina. Bob used to print the names of those who had been disappeared the day before, above the fold in his newspaper. It was a kind of an awakening to me to see what great journalism can and should do. — Chris Hedges

(I must note that the copy editor for this book, upon reading this section, actually allowed me to use singular they throughout the book. Here's to them in awed gratitude!) — John McWhorter

My first teacher was Steven Spielberg. I worked on Amazing Stories. That was my first job, as a writer and as a story editor. Watching him and his command of the tools of filmmaking, and his admiration for writing and the story itself, was the greatest lesson I ever had. — Mick Garris

After I had written more than a dozen adult genre novels, an editor I knew in New York asked me to write a mystery for young adults. — Rodman Philbrick

The successful editor is one who is constantly finding newwriters, nurturing their talents, and publishing them with critical and financial success. — A. Scott Berg

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build. — Jeff VanderMeer

Each time I write, I reaffirm my soul. — Rob Bignell, Editor

We live in an era where the best way to make a dent on the world may no longer be to write a letter to the editor or publish a book. It may be simply to stand up and say something ... because both the words and the passion with which they are delivered can now spread across the world at warp speed. — Chris Anderson

Unless you are in the willingness and ease and ecstasy of some kind of moment, you may end up the editor of your thoughts and of your expressions. I find I'm that way on stage. — Alex Ebert

Hon Editor Cale Fluhart was a power politically fer years, but he never got prominent enough t' have his speeches garbled. — Kin Hubbard

The life of an editor is not a glamorous one. You're a fixer; you make things better. — Courtney B. Vance

It was trying to make my tennis game look mildly respectable, which I found you don't even really need to practice if you have a really good editor. They can edit it and you're like, "Hey, it looks like I'm playing really well." That was the fun part, but it was like going to summer camp. — Paul Reiser

Although I still write, research and investigate, my role is primarily that of a publisher and editor-in-chief who organises and directs other journalists. — Julian Assange

Thady begins his memoirs of the Rackrent Family by dating MONDAY MORNING, because no great undertaking can be auspiciously commenced in Ireland on any morning but MONDAY MORNING. 'Oh, please God we live till Monday morning, we'll set the slater to mend the roof of the house. On Monday morning we'll fall to, and cut the turf. On Monday morning we'll see and begin mowing. On Monday morning, please your honour, we'll begin and dig the potatoes,' etc.
All the intermediate days, between the making of such speeches and the ensuing Monday, are wasted: and when Monday morning comes, it is ten to one that the business is deferred to THE NEXT Monday morning. The Editor knew a gentleman, who, to counteract this prejudice, made his workmen and labourers begin all new pieces of work upon a Saturday. — Maria Edgeworth

I'm a writer first and an editor second ... or maybe third or even fourth. Successful editing requires a very specific set of skills, and I don't claim to have all of them at my command. — Lynn Abbey

So often, environmentalists and others working to slow the destruction are capable of plainly describing the problems (Who wouldn't be? The problems are neither subtle nor cognitively challenging), yet when faced with the emotionally daunting task of fashioning a response to these clear and clearly insoluble problems, we generally suffer a failure of nerve and imagination. Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to stop committing atrocities, and was mystified that it didn't work. I continue to write letters to the editor pointing out untruths, and continue to be surprised each time the newspaper publishes its next absurdity. At least I've stopped writing to politicians. — Derrick Jensen

{When Abraham Lincoln was 26 years old in 1835, he wrote a defense of Thomas Paine's deism; a political associate, Samuel Hill, burned it to save Lincoln's political career. Historian Roy Basler, the editor of Lincoln's papers, said Paine had a strong influence on Lincoln's style:}

No other writer of the eighteenth century, with the exception of Jefferson, parallels more closely the temper or gist of Lincoln's later thought. In style, Paine above all others affords the variety of eloquence which, chastened and adapted to Lincoln's own mood, is revealed in Lincoln's formal writings. — Roy Basler

I am the discoverer of Quantum Editing, the process whereby the amateur editor keeps being changed by the editing he does, requiring him to further edit the manuscript, changing him yet further, etc. — Matt Chatelain

The right constraints can lead to your very best work. My favorite example? Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat with only 236 different words, so his editor bet him he couldn't write a book with only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss came back and won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, one of the bestselling children's books of all time. — Austin Kleon

There are just two people entitled to refer to themselves as "we"; one is the editor and the other is the fellow with a tapeworm. — Bill Nye

It's incorrect to assume you can be a fashion editor because you blog, if you don't have experience to look at fashion in a professional way. — Andre Leon Talley

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going. — Richard Branson

Everyone Doesn't Deserve A Front Seat In Your Life, Former "Editor In Chief, Susan Taylor Essence Magazine — Beverly Montgomery

Los Angeles people are incapable of passively mainlining TV and movies. Here you have to read who produced or directed every episode, who wrote it, who had guests shots and whether you know them personally and if they like you. You have to figure out who everybody's agent is and whether yours is better. You not only know but deeply care about the difference between such job titles as Producer, Supervising Producer, and Executive Story Editor ... So while the rest of the country is lying stupid in a media-induced coma, people in L.A. are in constant withdrawal. — Cynthia Heimel

[Lockyer] ... sometimes forgets he is only the editor and not the author of Nature.
[Lockyer was the first editor of Nature.] — James Whitbread Lee Glaisher

What had brought me to New York in the autumn of 1972 was a letter of recommendation written by Norman Mailer, the author of 'The Naked and the Dead' and American literature's leading heavyweight contender, to Dan Wolf, the delphic editor of 'The Village Voice.' — James Wolcott