272 Quotes About Editors

Editors keep pushingdeadline strain while people sleep on benches and subway grates; a welter weight boxer danceson the platform at 125th Streetstation, commuters look unfazed...

This sound self-serving, but being interested in everything makes you a more effective opportunist—and that's what an editor has to be, a student of unintended consequences.

Every writer, of course, has very specific ideas about editors. But writers seldom get the last word on anything.

You have to give an editor something to change, or he gets frustrated. After he pees in it himself, he likes the flavor much better, so he buys it.

What the president never accepted, or even clearly understood – as most people don't understand – is the autonomy editors have, and must have, to produce a good newspaper. I used to describe it as liberty, not license.

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

Everything we wrote was submitted to the editors above us, grizzled Korean War pilots with buzz cuts and an encyclopedic knowledge, who would routinely bounce our copy back and demand “fixes” (“More color,” “Doesn’t track,” or simply “Huh?” written in the margin).

Always remember that if editors were so damned smart, they would know how to dress.

We must always remember that we are only midwives—if we want praise for progeny we must give birth to our own.