"Manuscript: Something submitted in haste and returned at leisure." Oliver Herford

In l950, T.S. Eliot wrote Karl Shapiro, the editor of Poetry magazine, that the little magazine, by definition, has a single editor, a small circulation, and a short life span, rarely exceeding that of the founding editorship. Poetry, Eliot wrote, was no longer a little magazine, but an Institution. Joseph Parisi

"I am a pretty good writer, and a pretty good editor, and a pretty good businessman. But I find it difficult to be all three at once." Ford Madox Ford

"An editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he'd have someone to look up to." Gene Fowler

"Editors know best what they want when they open up a manuscript and find it right there in front of them." Stanley Ellin

"Proofreading is most effective after publication." Noel Coward

"A good editor is one who encourages a writer to write his best. Being an editor is a kind of selfless thing--again and again your own wisdom and insight are absorbed invisibly by the author, who then signs his name." John Updike (in speaking about his own editor at The New Yorker, William Maxwell)