The Latest Good Quote
Through the ages, many people from all walks of life have had unique perspectives on life and living. Their wisdom is timeless and the quotes attributed to them are powerful and positive reminders of what can, should and must be.
Here, I present quotes I believe are especially relevant to the journalism profession, offer my take on how I believe it applies to us and include a note about the author.
So here goes:
Posted: January 2, 2009
"How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity, that his intentions were good." -- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
My Take:
So who is every journalist's point person? Of course, it's the editor who accepts, rejects, corrects and controls.
Other musings by Mark Twain reflect his dislike for editors. They nearly always insisted on tinkering not only with his writing but also his style.
The modern role of editors is that of mainly making sure everything moves along on schedule and that final copy is suitable for readers and acceptable to upper management. Yet, the best editors I have known also effectively challenged every journalist under their command to crank themselves to ever increasingly higher levels of excellence. In the process, they were serving several roles -- teacher, counselor, psychologist and enforcer -- and being a patient and careful listener.
Maybe Mark Twain was never fortunate enough to be submitting his work to an editor with such sterling qualities.
Consider yourself extremely lucky if you are.
About Mark Twain:
Born in Missouri as Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, in an environment filled with steamboat captains, entertainers, gamblers, slave traders, swindlers, prostitutes and assorted other river travelers. Those experiences served him well in later years when he became internationally known for his novels, travel narratives, short stories, sketches and essays.
In the beginning, however, he shunned high school and college to gain an education in print shops and newspaper offices. Indeed, at age 22 he had traveled to several major Eastern cities. But he aborted a planned trip to South America and instead training to be a riverboat pilot. Later, he said that during his riverboat piloting he "got personally and familiarly acquainted with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found in fiction, biography or history."
He traveled extensively throughout his life as he wrote such famous works at "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn." Although he was a serious and often pessimistic man, he is best known and remembered as a humorist.
Said Ernest Hemingway, "All modern American literature comes from . . . .'Huckleberry Finn.'"
Click here to see an archive of previous quotes.