Quotes from Betsy Lerner

Indeed, the great paradox of the writer's life is how much time he spends alone trying to connect with other people.

... but every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood.

God shined down his light on our fair city and conferred an Apple Store upon us. Did I really have any reason to complain?

How many Jewish grandmothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? You shouldn't worry . . . I'll sit in the dark.

Facebook may connect us across the world and throughout eternity, but it won't deliver a pot roast.

But in my experience, a writer gravitates toward a certain form or genre because, like a well-made jacket, it suits him.

I had officially joined the cacophony of sick mother fuckers.

I hadn't been able to trust since the age of four. I was torn between wanting to be cradled and telling the world to go fuck itself, and those were opposite sides of the same coin.

Nothing was a more powerful compass of my mood or a better indication of my self-worth than the number on the scale.

When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money. It other words, the stuff of great books.

I]t's the child writer who has figured out, early on, that writing is about saving your soul.

Just remember that this relationship is based on mutual trust and respect, so never reveal your true self.

It was a miracle to me, this transformation of my acorns into an oak.

but every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood.

The world doesn't fully make sense until the writer has secured his version of it on the page. And the act of writing is strangely more lifelike than life.

But I also believe there is enormous value in the piece of writing that goes no further than the one person for whom it was intended, that no combination of written words is more eloquent than those exchanged in letters between lovers or friends, or along the pale blue lines of private diaries, where people take communion with themselves.

But editors are still the world's readers. And thus the eyes of the world.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change. The courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference. I still didn't know the difference.

Chances are you have a deep connection to books because at some point you discovered that they were the one truly safe place to discover and explore feelings that are banished from the dinner table, the cocktail party, the golf foursome, the bridge game. Because the writers who mattered to you have dared to say I am a sick man. And because within the world of books there is no censure.

No matter how many compromises were made along the way, no matter what happens in the future, a book is a thing to behold.

For the writer who truly loves language, a trip to the copy editor is like a week at a spa. You come out looking younger, trimmer, and standing straighter.

What I want to know it whether we're supposed to change or just accept who we are?

Beware of all writers who substitute initials for their give names -

There is nothing more refreshing for an editor than to meet a writer or read a query that takes him completely by surprise