20th-century Editor Quotes

Training for a marathon is much like climbing a ladder. Each ring is a short-term goal that must be met in sequence in order to reach the long-term goal at the top of the ladder.

What is a bore? The answer will vary depending on whether one is at a cocktail party... or the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

I think you learn about yourself through experiences - as many of them as you can manage.

Aggression, the writer's main source of energy.

The rocks. They carry the chronology of water. All things simultaneously living and dead in your hands.

Lidia Yuknavitch

People are much too concerned about having good taste.… It's not a character flaw if you don't have good taste.

The night club had a curious and diverse appeal. To some it was a sex-exciter. To others, frequenting a night club and throwing away money was a form of exhibitionism...wealthy men from out of town visited the clubs for appalling orgies of spending and drinking, and most of them seemed to think it was worth the cost.

Stanley Walker (editor)

Evolution doesn't care about what makes sense; it cares about what works

Kevin Kelly (editor)

Besides death, constipation is the big fear in hospitals.

I carry her with me now like a loose sweater that sucks out the chill on a snowy winter night.

Pinkie Gordon Lane

At a ballgame, as in a place of worship, no one is alone in the crowd.

Someone asked me the other day if I believe in conspiracies. Well, sure. Here's one. It is called the political system. It is nothing if not a giant conspiracy to rob, trick and subjugate the population.

Science is not an abstract body of knowledge, but man's understanding of nature. It is not an idealized interrogation of nature by dedicated servants of truth, but a human process governed by the ordinary human passions of ambition, pride, and greed, as well as by all the well-hymned virtues attributed to men of science.

Keith Olbermann is trying to make a business out of destroying Bill O'Reilly. He's done certain things to Bill O'Reilly that I believe were way over the line. I think that's bad behavior. But it's okay for him to criticize Bill. And Bill shouldn't be so sensitive. He should ignore that.

I know that when I write, I'm writing for people who can handle high-school math, read at the Grade 12 level, and appreciate subtle humor as opposed to the toilet-bowl kind. I guess that makes the lower cutoff about 17-18 years old.

Perhaps the central reason that Ahmadinejad's message, and the hundreds of thousands of voices echoing his call throughout the world, are so dangerous is because the Free World is making precious little effort to assert its own message.

Take a hard look at those things, which we needlessly turn into burdens, when they were meant to be blessings.

Elaine A. Cannon

In matching your wits against yourself you take on the shrewdest and wiliest antagonist you can have, and consequently a victorious outcome in this duel of wits brings a great feeling of triumph.

Dorothea Brande

Liquor is not a necessity. It is a means of momentarily sidestepping necessity.

Clifton Fadiman

Black is the hardest color in the world to get right-except for gray...

Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt - a grease spot on the grass.

Mary Ann Shaffer

Goodnight stars Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere

Margaret Wise Brown

They are detached from the language and inflated like little balloons.

The truth is like salt. Men want to taste
a little, but too much makes everyone
sick.

Joe Abercrombie

Garden: One of a vast number of free outdoor restaurants operated by charity-minded amateurs in an effort to provide healthful, balanced meals for insects, birds and animals.