Quotes About Revision

Very first thing in the morning, I spew some rough genius directly on to the laptop. Then I have coffee and rewrite for three hours.

The life of an editor is not a glamorous one. You're a fixer; you make things better.

I'm not a good writer. It takes me a long time to get there. I write and then rewrite and revise and do it over and over until I'm satisfied.

There have been times when I reread - or at least leafed through - something because I'd sent a copy to a friend, and what usually happened was that I noticed dozens and dozens of clumsy phrases I wished I could rewrite.

When you see an early edited version, you're not sure what it is. The movie is getting on its wobbly legs.

I'm not sure if a writer should talk about themes. Themes arrive out of the deeper structure and concerns, but to me, the main thing is getting it down right, writing about specific characters in specific predicaments, and finding a way to be true to the story itself, not only in the first burst of draft but in the revision, too.

All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas!

It's very rare to watch a movie and think, 'That's the movie we shot!' So many things happen, with edits and things getting cut out.

The thing about our movies is, we write thirty drafts. That's a very detailed script. Which means that if you try to crank it out week to week in television, it's impossible.

First thoughts are not always the best.

I'm not a writer, but I'm very good at editing. That's my specialty. I can read something and tell you everything that's wrong with it and what's great about it and what needs to change, but it's hard for me to organize my thoughts.

Open this book to a random page. With a pencil, mark any word or phrase that you think does not contribute to the meaning of a passage or chapter. 2. Pick another page. As an exercise, imagine that you have been assigned to cut 10 percent. Mark the candidates for deletion.

That voice you hear in your head, the one whispering that you need to add some comments, may just be your program crying out to be rewritten.

If you don't like it, change it, we said, to each other and to ourselves. And so we would change for the man, for another one. Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.

We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.

If you don't like it, change it, we said, to each other and to ourselves. And so we would change the man, for another one. Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves.

That is a reconstruction, too.

The influence of modern physics goes beyond technology. It extends to the realm of thought and culture where it has led to a deep revision in man's conception of the universe and his relation to it

Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.

The first Chapter Law is, "Don't spend much time on it. You're going to have to rewrite it."

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

even the outright deletions that Ayn Rand's editor should have taken care of).

Hmmm," my mother said, like she did when I gave her a composition to read and she was going to tell me to take another shot at it.

Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.