Jonathan Galassi Quotes

I know that many authors say editors don't edit anymore, but that's not been true in my experience.

I didn't understand in the beginning that the editor didn't want me to know the author. I'd make an effort to meet the author, but it would end up being a disaster because then I had the author telling me what I should be doing.

After writing each novel, I would spend days poring over suggestions from my editor.

I think that the continuity of what I do as an editor with what I did when I started out 40 years ago is very direct. The delivery system is changing and will continue to, but the actual interaction between publisher and author is exactly the same.

Movies are an editor's medium.

In film, you're so much in the hands and at the mercy of the editor, so sometimes it's good to watch it just to see how it turns out - it can be so different than how you imagined it. But sometimes it's better to just let it go for your own sense of self worth.

'The New Yorker' was really my first experience with serious editing. Previously, I'd more or less just had copyediting with a few suggestions - not much.

Editing is a meditative process. I enjoy it the most. I am not dealing with 200 people.

I have never had any problems with editors who wanted me to change my methods or point of view. I pay a lot of attention to editors, but in a different way. They sometimes catch mistakes and help with the order of poems in a book. I do not underestimate them! Indeed, I have been one myself.

I come out of journalism, and then book writing. There, it's just you and your editor and maybe a copy desk, looking over your editor's shoulder, and that's the story. It's right there. I can show it to you because it's on paper.

An editor who is a mentor, advisor, and psychiatrist. Don't kid yourself-a good editor will make your book better.

Being an editor it's a complicated job, but the last impression I'd want anybody to have is that it's onerous. It's a joy - a complicated joy, but a joy.

The way I work is that I never let people do an assembly. I don't like it because it shapes the film in a way that I can't really control. To me, editing is making the film and it's a huge process and editors are under-rated.

I feel like I have more experience with publishing humor than pretty much any editor I'm going to be dealing with so sometimes I'll get a little bit nuts if I write something I know is good a certain way, and some editor because of some restriction he has and wants to change it that I know is going to make it less funny that'll piss me off and then I'm inclined to go, "Well, hey I've been doing this a long time, maybe you should..." That doesn't happen that often, but I'm more likely to say that now than I would have been a long time ago. Because dammit, I'm infallible!

If a good editor will let me tell my story with the right artist, I'm happy.

The ideal editor will hold you to the best of yourself in the piece.

Writers get to stay with the piece. They don't just turn the script in and somebody else takes it over and goes out and produces it and edits it and all that stuff. We stay with the piece all the way through.

I did a guest shot on a comedy series where they did 20 to 30 takes of everything. It's just gone by then. The joke is over. It's not funny anymore, and then of course, the editor's the one that has to figure out the timing. I think a lot depends on that.

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

The idea that a film is created in the editing room - it's only a certain kind of movie that's made in the editing room and it's not one that I really want to see.

I usually have poor to absent relations with editors because they have a habit of desiring changes and I resist changes.

In America, their pre-production is really long but the production is much shorter. They decide everything from the beginning to the end. They edit and nobody can touch it, actually.

The first cut I do is usually between five and 10 minutes shorter then the cut that we release. Anything I think isn't working or might not work, I don't even put it in the director's cut. And usually it's the studio suggesting I put stuff back in, as opposed to studios saying, "You got to lose 40 minutes," they are always saying, "You've got to gain five minutes."

When you are acting in a film, you have no idea what scene the editor is going to choose. For instance, after you have directed, you feel more comfortable delivering a performance. Because you know the real performance is put together in the editing room.

One thing I loved about New Zealand was the indoor/outdoor lifestyle of the place.