Editors Quotes

Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

To me, editing is not something you can do in a rush because the artists themselves are not always their own best editors. Time is absolutely everything.

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

Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.

Refuse to be average.

The public is the only critic whose judgment is worth anything at all.

God was created by evolution, inside the imagination of a primate.

Very few editors worry about heresy - their goals are much too commercial, thank goodness.

The conscious mind is the editor, and the subconscious mind is the writer.

An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.

There won't be editors in the future with the Internet world, with citizen reporting. That doesn't scare me.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'

I think one of the interesting things is that vi is really a mode-based editor.

I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.

And in Hollywood, you know, everyone is an expert. Most of them are expert editors. They can't direct, they can't write, they can't act, but, by God, they all think they can edit.

Every newspaper editor says the heart of the paper is the reporter - which is true - except for the pay!

The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.

As Christians, we are to be newsboys and not editors of the gospel.

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.

If you dared to put your opinion into a factual piece, your editors said, "You can't do this. Write an op-ed."

I got tired of people complaining that it was too hard to use UNIX because the editor was too complicated.

I've had editors over the years who couldn't find a clue if it was stapled to their butt.

Successful model? That's a myth. The year I modeled was the most painful year of my life. Editors would always talk to you in the third person as though you were merely a piece of merchandise.

A very good editor is almost a collaborator.

Authors who moan with praise for their editors always seem to reek slightly of the Stockholm syndrome.

Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors.

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

I always have trouble with titles for my books. I usually have no title until the editor has to present the book and calls me frantically, 'Judy, we need a title.

Truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.

There are plenty of bad editors who try to impose their own vision on a book. (…) A good novel editor is invisible.

Don't be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts.

You're at the mercy of the editors' hands.

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.

A film actor is just a victim of directors and editors.

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

It is also one of the pleasures of oral biography, in that the reader, rather than editor, is jury.

William Packard surely must be one of the great editors of our time.

I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.

There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.

I was editor of my high school literary magazine and a reporter for the school newspaper.

In 1972 I married again, to Elisabeth Case; she continues to be wife, companion, critic and editor: a partner in the projects and programs that we undertake.

Most of my success, I feel, comes from being a good editor as opposed to a great writer.

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

Machines aren't replacing proofreaders at all. Copy editors, who proofread and much, much more, use spellcheck as a tool but read every word that appears in the paper

Writers' bedtimes vary, but few have been spared the shock of a copy editor's early wake-up call.

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.

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose... the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.

I think editors have to come out of a certain kind of community.

It's all about who's where on the food chain. When I'm the story editor, I expect my writers to follow my vision. When I'm working for another editor, I'm obliged to follow their vision.