“Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, "How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?" and avoid "How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?"”

Memo to The New Yorker (1959); reprinted in New York Times Book Review (4 December 1988)
Letters and interviews

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency o…" by James Thurber?

James Thurber90

American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright 1894–1961

Related quotes

“You cannot teach creativity—how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.” Mario Vargas Llosa”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

“How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Nobel Prize Speech (1954)

“A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Nobel Prize Speech (1954)

“If it was easy, everyone would do it rather than going around telling you their ideas and saying how they could be a writer if they had the time.”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Arthur M. Jolly, interview with Write On Online http://writeononline.com/2009/09/11/author-qa-playwright-arthur-jolly/ (2009) <br class="br">Interviews and profiles