Manuscripts Quotes - Page 3

• I'm gregarious with writers and never with manuscripts . . . I [like to] create the illusion of seamless perfection, so I alone know the flawed homely process along the way.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Perfection, Way, Illusion

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• When I get sent manuscripts from aspiring poets, I do one of two things: if there is no stamped self-addressed envelope, I throw it into the bin.-If there is, I write and tell them to f**k off.

  Philip Larkin

  Writing, Self, Two

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• Why am I obsessed with the idea I can justify myself by getting manuscripts published? Is it an escape-an excuse for any social failure-so I can say "No, I don't go out for many extracurricular activities, but I spend a lot of time writing."

  Sylvia Plath

  Writing, Ideas, Excuse

  Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.33, Anchor

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• Himmler wants to send an expedition to Tibet to look for ancient manuscripts on the Aryans. The man is like a little schoolgirl. What culture is there in an old jug, I ask you?

  Adolf Hitler

  Men, Jugs, Culture

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, 'The author of this book is mistaken'; but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.

  Saint Augustine

  Book, Scripture, Contradiction

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• I ran through the manuscript in the space of a day, much as one might pick compulsively at a box of chocolates. It was simply too provocative to put down. Has the potential of being highly influential inside the field and among an informed public.

  Baruch Halpern

  Space, Chocolate, Might

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• I love the process of cracking the spine for the first time and slowly sinking into a book. That will soon seem old-fashioned, I'm sure, like the time of illuminated manuscripts.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Book, Firsts, Process

  "A Voice in Haiti’s Chorus". Interview with Elizabeth Gettelman, www.motherjones.com. 2010.

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• I need to see the original paintings just as little as I have to read the original manuscripts of books.

  Rene Magritte

  Book, Needs, Littles

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• For me - showing a half-finished manuscript is tricky. Just as a bird will get spooked and abandon her eggs if some outside party comes around and makes too much noise or pokes around the nest too intrusively - well, that's what it's like for me if I show work too early and I get a lot of editorial suggestions at the wrong time.

  Donna Tartt

  Party, Eggs, Bird

  Interview with Michael Pietsch, www.slate.com. October 11, 2013.

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• You had censorship. If you brought a manuscript to the publisher, you knew he would suggest changes. If you wanted to write and speak what you thought had to be written and spoken, you had to act against all these suppressive rules.

  Stefan Heym

  Writing, Censorship, Speak

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• I felt that there were so many things that could go wrong, in adapting The Hunger Games , and I had this fierce desire to protect this book that she had written. At that time, I read the second book, in manuscript form, and so I saw where she was going with the series. I was able to convince Suzanne [Collins] to trust me with the books.

  Nina Jacobson

  Book, Games, Desire

  Source: collider.com

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• I kept writing short stories and sending out my manuscript, and it kept coming back like a bad penny. It was rejected all over town, quite often in very complimentary terms, but rejected nonetheless. Agents would return it saying that they loved it but didn't think they could sell it, or they would ask if I could change the collection into linked stories.

  Debra Dean

  Writing, Thinking, Stories

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I think the trick of writing a good picture book manuscript is to leave that space for illustration. An illustrated novel can do the same thing.

  Mac Barnett

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  "Mac Barnett & Jory John Talk with Roger". Interview with Roger Sutton, www.hbook.com. February 3, 2015.

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• I do write my manuscripts by hand, in pencil on legal pads. Then they are typed on a word processor by my typist.

  Nelson DeMille

  Writing, Hands, Pads

  Talk City Network Interview, www.bookbrowse.com. 2000.

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• In the night ride across the Wular lake a small storm made me worry for the safety of my manuscript (Rajatarangini). It seemed as if the goddess of wisdom - Sharada, represented by waters of Kashmir, was unwilling to let me abduct the manuscript. This is what happened 1200 years ago to the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang, who had to leave his Sanskrit manuscript in the angry Indus River.

  Aurel Stein

  Night, Lakes, Years

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• 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime. According to some ancient manuscripts 9 is not a prime number, but beyond the distant horizon of the oceans, in the New World that I am going to discover, there are surely lots of them.

  Christopher Columbus

  Ocean, Numbers, Horizon

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• Often I sort of work up and down the manuscript. I sometimes used to go ahead of myself to see what was going to happen next, to make certain it fits what was going to be happening soon.

  Terry Pratchett

  Next, Sometimes, Fit

  "Terry Pratchett on his latest novel, his medical diagnosis, and more". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 16, 2012.

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• Trends come and go, and if you try to latch onto a trend it will likely be passé by the time you have completed your manuscript.

  Andrew McAleer

  Trying, Trends, Latches

  Andrew McAleer (2008). “101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers”, p.66, Adams Media

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• The manuscript you submit [should not] contain any flaws that you can identify - it is up to the writer to do the work, rather than counting on some stranger in Manhattan to do it for him.

  Richard North Patterson

  Manhattan, Flaws, Stranger

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• There's never any humongous next draft. I know a writer who every time he finished a novel - you would know his name very well - but his editor would come and live with him for a month. And they would go through the manuscript together.

  Dean Koontz

  Editors, Names, Together

  "The Rumpus Interview With Dean Koontz". Interview with Ben Pfeiffer, therumpus.net. December 21, 2015.

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• I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage.

  Tom Robbins

  Book, Writing, Journey

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• In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes pure and simple slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another.

  Bart D. Ehrman

  Christian, Mistake, Simple

  Bart D. Ehrman (2008). “Whose Word is It?: The Story Behind who Changed the New Testament and why”, p.55, A&C Black

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• The usual way - through a long series of rejections, revising my manuscripts, and kept trying again and again. Finally I was fortunate enough to find a good agent.

  Danielle Steel

  Long, Rejection, Trying

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• If the big publishers are doing so well, why do they require writers to send return postage with their manuscripts?

  Dan Poynter

  Return, Bigs, Wells

  Dan Poynter (2003). “The self-publishing manual: how to write, print, and sell your own book”, Para Publishing

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• Since my first novel was rescued from a slush pile, it makes me sad that most publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. Nor are many willing to take chances on novels that are not deemed immediately "marketable."

  Katherine Paterson

  Publishing House, Firsts, Take A Chance

  Source: www.hbook.com

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