Editorial Impact Quotes

Political courage reads well in editorials, but it doesn't translate into political reality.

The reason why my strip is important is not what I say, it’s that I say it in The Washington Post. It’s the channels of distribution that make it important. There’s a million people writing [stuff] in their basement. Great, but the relevance [of my work] is that everyone is reading it.

That the Op-Ed page is very important in readers' and the nation's perception of the Times, the perception of its editorial positions, and of its implicit editorial positions as expressed by the publisher's choice of people who are given the freedom to write opinion columns.

"I think we'll have a good potato crop this year," a newspaper editor told his housekeeper one morning. "No such thing," asserted the housekeeper. "I think the crop will be poor." Ignoring her remark, the editor caused to be inserted in the evening paper his estimate of the crop situation. That night when he returned home he found the housekeeper waiting for him with a sheepish grin on her face and a copy of the paper in her hand. "I was wrong," she said apologetically. "It says right here in the paper that the crop will be excellent this fall."

There are many things that matter much more than an editor's gender in shaping the direction of the leadership.

I depend on good editors and a good director. It's up to the way they shoot it, the lighting and all that. I like how small you can be on TV.

I have no idea what readership is of written editorials, but it doesn't come anywhere close to the readership of editorial cartoons.

I have a secret goal with my editor - he has asthma and uses his inhaler, and after I send him a new manuscript, I'll have his assistant phone me and tell me how many times he had to get his inhaler out while reading a draft. It's my secret laugh meter.