While writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism.

Editors can be stupid at times. They just ignore that author’s intention. I always try to read unabridged editions, so much is lost with cut versions of classic literature, even movies don’t make sense when they are edited too much. I love the longueurs of a book even if they seem pointless because you can get a peek into the author’s mind, a glimpse of their creative soul. I mean, how would people like it if editors came along and said to an artist, ‘Whoops, you left just a tad too much space around that lily pad there, lets crop that a bit, shall we?’. Monet would be ripping his hair out.

In the end, what makes a book valuable is not the paper it’s printed on, but the thousands of hours of work by dozens of people who are dedicated to creating the best possible reading experience for you.

But editors are still the world's readers. And thus the eyes of the world.

We see them most when we are o nnthe outside looking in

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

Be a good editor. The Universe needs more good editors, God knows.

Great poets are great copy editors.

Girls, we're fiction editors--we know how to plot, and we know how to cover our tracks. We can teach Jerry Key a lesson he'll never forget.

Only Southerners have taken horsewhips and pistols to editors about the treatment or maltreatment of their manuscript. This--the actual pistols--was in the old days, of course, we no longer succumb to the impulse. But it is still there, within us.

Great writers experience their dreams. They put them on paper, where others can read about them.

A good editor is like tinsel to a Christmas Tree...they add the perfect amount of sparkle without being gaudy.

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

I felt old. Again. It had been happening a lot lately. I did not live the life of an old lady, but I could hear it beckoning to me, like a mermaid on a rock."— Michelle Tea, "Paris: A