"The best editor is the one who helps write a great book and then disappears."
The quote suggests that an ideal editor enhances a writer's work without seeking personal recognition or attention, instead allowing the focus to remain on the written piece itself. This editor works collaboratively to shape and refine the text, contributing significantly to its quality while ensuring their own contributions fade into the background. Ultimately, they aim for the final product to be a great book that stands alone, rather than one that is defined by the editor's involvement.
"Editors can't make writers out of mediocre people, but they can make mediocre writers out of good ones."
This quote suggests that while editors have the power to refine and polish the work of talented writers (good ones), they may inadvertently stifle or diminish the creativity and unique voice of less experienced or less skilled writers (mediocre ones). The message implies that raw talent cannot be taught or created, but poor writing can sometimes be improved with proper guidance. It's a reminder of the balance between nurturing talent and imposing editorial standards in the process of shaping literature.
"The best writing is re-writing."
This quote by Robert Gottlieb emphasizes that effective writing requires a process of continuous refinement and improvement, rather than just a one-time drafting. It suggests that the path to quality writing often involves multiple iterations where ideas are clarified, word choices refined, and overall structure improved, leading to the best possible final product.
"A book is like a ship; only those that are well and carefully built will get us safely to shore."
This quote implies that a book, much like a ship, must be meticulously crafted in order to guarantee its success in reaching its intended destination (the reader's understanding). Just as a well-built ship can navigate through stormy seas and arrive at its destination safely, a carefully constructed book can effectively convey ideas and inspire thought. In essence, the quote highlights the importance of careful planning, consideration, and attention to detail in both writing and shipbuilding.
"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
This quote by Robert Gottlieb emphasizes the inherent mystery and complexity surrounding the craft of novel-writing, suggesting that despite numerous attempts to define or codify successful methods, there remains an unquantifiable, intangible quality that differentiates great novels from mediocre ones. It highlights the subjective nature and artistic freedom involved in creating a compelling narrative.
In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about.
- Robert Gottlieb
Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vine, we wake up after the dog days of August with something to look at.
- Robert Gottlieb
'Black Swan' does what Hollywood movies have always done - it spends its energies on getting some surface things right while getting everything important wrong. Darren Aronofsky, the director, applies the same techniques and the same sensibility here as he did with 'The Wrestler,' only with a prettier protagonist.
- Robert Gottlieb
Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime choreographer, has put together an unspeakably dopey and incompetent mess called 'Call Me Ben,' combining ultra-generic dance, terrible dialogue and disastrous storytelling, about the founding of Las Vegas by the gangster Bugsy Siegel, who insists, violently, on being addressed as 'Ben.'
- Robert Gottlieb
Paris, as always, is swarming with Americans, and these days, it's also swarming with hamburgers. Oddly, though, it's not typically the Americans who are pursuing the perfect burger on the perfect bun with the obligatory side of perfect coleslaw; the Americans are pursuing the perfect blanquette de veau.
- Robert Gottlieb
You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series of unresolved murder mysteries; as the manifestation of one woman's peculiar psychic life; as a lesson in forensics; as a metaphor for the fate of women; as a photographic study.
- Robert Gottlieb
Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, having produced fifteen novels, many of which can confidently be called great, as well as having accomplished outstanding work in activities into which his insatiable need to expend his vast energies - to achieve, to prevail - carried him: journalism, editing, acting, social reform.
- Robert Gottlieb
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