Quotes from Maxwell Perkins

For real self esteem is not derived from the great things you've done, the things you won. The mark you've made - but an appreciation of yourself for what you are.

You are all right on time, except for the fact that time is the enemy of us all, and especially of the writer.

Editors are extremely fallible people, all of them. Don't put too much trust in them.

Every good thing that comes is accompanied by trouble.

Just get it down on paper, and then we'll see what to do with it.

Anybody can find out if he is a writer. If he were a writer, when he tried to write of some particular day, he would find in the effort that he could recall exactly how the light fell and how the temperature felt, and all the quality of it. Most people cannot do it. If they can do it, they may never be successful in a pecuniary sense, but that ability is at the bottom of writing, I am sure.

I believe the writer... should always be the final judge. I have always held to that position and have sometimes seen books hurt thereby, but at least as often helped. The book belongs to the author.

You have to throw yourself away when you write.