Book Quote by Mark Twain

Another editor. That thing behind his ear is his pencil. Whenever he finds a bright thing in your manuscript he strikes it out with…

— Mark Twain

“He'd stolen his philosophy of editing from the old New Critics—it's just about the book. Not the author, not the market, not the reader...one…

— Tiffany Reisz

It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal…

— Frank Yerby

“You're writing, you're coasting, and you're thinking, 'This is the best thing I've ever written, and it's coming so easily, and these characters are…

— Jacqueline Woodson

Next to the defeated politician, the writer is the most vocal and inventive griper on earth. He sees hardship and unfairness wherever he looks.…

— Peter Mayle

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

— Terri Windling

“Book reviewer: Very often a writer who has never been published taking out their frustrations on a writer who has.”

— Raul Ramos y Sanchez

Some reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He…

— E. M. Forster

“An editor is someone who is paid to tell a writer what she thinks about how he wrote what he thinks about.”

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“A book is never, ever finished. You simply get to a point where you and your editor are reasonably happy with how it is…

— Kimberly Pauley

“The editor was Harper & Row’s legendary mystery expert, Joan Kahn. He’d sent her a letter asking her opinion after his agent had advised…

— Anne Hillerman

As much as I really like the screenwriting thing, the novel is where the author has so much control.

— Gillian Flynn