Julius Schwartz Quotes

You read a million scripts during pilot season, and most of them are not very good, so the good ones really shine.

That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

Sometimes we'll only get one script in a year that we want to make that we feel is good enough.

TV feels quite constipated, and the thing I find particularly difficult is the branding of the channels where it's not 'Is it a good script?' but 'Is it a BBC2 script?'

Most of my success, I feel, comes from being a good editor as opposed to a great writer.

Dullness is the only crime for which an editor ought to be hung.

My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

The way British publishing works is that you go from not being published no matter how good you are, to being published no matter how bad you are.

My wife - an ex journalist and current TV producer - has a rule that she taught me at the start of B3ta. Does the item make you laugh, or does it make you go, 'Oh my God?' If you score on either count, then you have something that is worth sharing.

I'd read a lot of scripts, and I remember reading 'Orange Is the New Black,' and it was at the head of the pack. I remember thinking, 'Wow, that is really good. I would love to be a part of that.'

There's good movies and there's bad movies. The genres are never dead, it's just about how to apply them and articulate them and execute them - the story, the quality of the writing, the acting, the design elements, the directorial execution - all these things make it what it is.

When you write something it has to hit the level that you accept as being good.

My preference is for good writing. It doesn't matter if it's for film or TV. Whatever. It starts with the writing. Even though I've had problems with writers, it doesn't matter how great of an actor you are. If the writing is bad, you're going to struggle.

I feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it's based on is whether it's good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and try to rewrite it.

It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Without editors planning assignments and copy editors fixing mistakes, reporters quickly deteriorate into underwear guys writing blogs from their den.

Just as good books give me the joys of being alive, bad novels depress me, and as I notice this sentiment coming from the pages, I stop. I also do not hesitate to walk out of a movie house if the film is bad.

Publishers vet books, and they do a good job keeping out the low quality. But they also miss some good quality.

Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.

If the scripts are not good, I'll tell somebody, 'This isn't good.'

A lot of authors, judging by their list, will put anything out that they finish... That's the worst model I've heard of in my life. It's just idiotic. Why wouldn't you just wait for the good ones?

The thing with newspapers is that they are a filter. We're relying on the editors of that paper to be a filter and to tell you that this is worth reading about, this is quality, and this is quite reliable.

I have a lot of scripts that come my way, and some of them take a bit longer to read than others. There are a lot of things that I have to pass on because I'm just not into it, and sometimes the story is slightly forced.