Your job as an editor is to figure out what the book needs, but the writer has to provide it. You can't be the one who says, Send him to Hong Kong at this point, let him have a love affair with a cocker spaniel. Rather, you say, This book needs something at this point: it needs opening up, it needs a direction, it needs excitement.


Paris Review (No. 132, Fall 1994)

Robert Gottlieb Quotes

Your job as an editor is to figure out what the book needs, but the writer has to provide it. You can't be the one who says, Send him to Hong Kong at ...

Your job as an editor is to figure out what the book needs, but the writer has to provide it. You can't be the one who says, Send him to Hong Kong at ...

Your job as an editor is to figure out what the book needs, but the writer has to provide it. You can't be the one who says, Send him to Hong Kong at ...

Your job as an editor is to figure out what the book needs, but the writer has to provide it. You can't be the one who says, Send him to Hong Kong at ...