One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. – Hart Crane
An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff. – Adlai Stevenson, quoted in Ronald D. Fuchs, You Said a Mouthful
The expression “to write something down” suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it. – William Gass, “Habitations of the Word,” Kenyon Review, October 1984
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. – Samuel Johnson, “Recalling the Advice of a College Tutor,” Boswell, Life of John
The function of the politician, therefore, is one of continuous watchfulness and activity, and he must have intimate knowledge of details if he would work out grand results. – John George Nicolay
