Quotes & Sayings About Letters To The Editor

Jesus said his disciples would be known for their love, not for their placards of protest and angry letters to the editor. — Brian Zahnd

The most famous self-made man in the world today is our own Edison. Talk with Mr. Edison and he will tell you he owes much if not most of his success to omnivorous reading. Forbes is one of his favorite publications. How closely he reads it can be gathered from a letter just received from him in which he asks the editor to forward a long analytical letter to the writer of a series of articles which contained two figures Mr. Edison questions, and he wants to know exactly on what authority or investigation they were based. Both letters were the product of Mr. Edison and were signed by him. — B.C. Forbes

I think there's a lot of benefit in letting people vent. When I was on the Manchester Evening News, we got 500 letters a day, and part of my job as editor was to edit them. And I thought that was one of the best things in the newspaper, and it was instituted by an editor known as Big Tom, who said 'this is the voice of the people.' And he was quite right. — Harold Evans

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

But in the end I decided against it. The hell with the newspapers. Nobody reads the letters to the editor column except more nuts. The whole world is full of nuts. It's enough to get you down. — Philip K. Dick

Journalists don't have audiences - they have publics who can respond instantly and globally, positively or negatively, with a great deal more power than the traditional letters to the editor could wield. — Howard Rheingold

As you will have no doubt foreseen...

- Kelvin McKenzie, The Sun's editor; Preamble of the letter he sent to the paper's astrologer he was firing — Kelvin MacKenzie

The hell with the newspapers. Nobody reads the letters to the editor column except the nuts. It's enough to get you down. — Philip K. Dick

Many people who have an interest in politics feel they should proclaim - loudly, and at any given time - what their views are and why the "other side" is wrong. These proclamations appear in many forms, from scathing letters to the editor to frothing-at-the-mouth comments on blogs and internet videos. Although expression and debate are vital parts of policymaking, political speech should be used to push forward ideas that will help others. — Victoria Stoklasa

Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper. — Truman Capote

The monarchy, as Lord Esher, adviser to Edward VII and editor of Queen Victoria's early letters and journals, would later say, was exchanging 'authority' for 'influence'.3 — A. N. Wilson

THOMAS JEFFERSON LEFT POSTERITY an immense correspondence, and I am particularly indebted to The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, published by Princeton University Press and first edited by Julian P. Boyd. I am, moreover, grateful to the incumbent editors of the Papers, especially general editor Barbara B. Oberg, for sharing unpublished transcripts of letters gathered for future volumes. The goal of the Princeton edition was, and continues to be, "to present as accurate a text as possible and to preserve as many of Jefferson's distinctive mannerisms of writing as can be done." To provide clarity and readability for a modern audience, however, I have taken the liberty of regularizing much of the quoted language from Jefferson and from his contemporaries. I have, for instance, silently corrected Jefferson's frequent use of "it's" for "its" and "recieve" for "receive," and have, in most cases, expanded contractions and abbreviations and followed generally accepted practices of capitalization. — Jon Meacham

So many letters to the editor and comments on the Internet have this same tone of thrilled vindication: these are people who have been vigilantly on the lookout for something to be offended by, and found it. — Tim Kreider