Quotes by Jonathan Galassi - Page 1

Writing is inherently scary.
Jonathan Galassi /
Scary
Inherently
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John Updike's first published book was a collection of poems.
Jonathan Galassi /
Published
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After college, I went to England and studied for a couple years.
Jonathan Galassi /
Couple Years
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I've always loved the poetry in 'Pale Fire.' I think it's wonderful.
Jonathan Galassi /
Pale
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Claiming your life for yourself feels like a huge deal until you do it.
Jonathan Galassi /
Life Yourself Your
Claiming
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I feel that there is not an endlessly expandable universe of fiction readers.
Jonathan Galassi /
Endlessly
Readers
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What the beautiful-writing writers are most attached to is almost always superfluous.
Jonathan Galassi /
Superfluous
Attached
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The only thing you can really say in a poem is what you really, really deeply believe.
Jonathan Galassi /
Poem
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Editing is more by-the-hip. You look at a text and ask yourself how it can be improved.
Jonathan Galassi /
Editing
Improved
Text
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As the publisher of FSG and the custodian of its legacy, I have an interested insider's view.
Jonathan Galassi /
Legacy
Custodian
Insider
Publisher
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A lot of great authors are published before their time. That's not wrong; it's just the way it works.
Jonathan Galassi /
Time Great Way
Authors
Published
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An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created.
Jonathan Galassi /
Distributor
Publisher
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I've always used poetry to explain myself to myself. These things just sat in my psyche and then came out.
Jonathan Galassi /
Explain
Psyche
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I think poetry should be read very much like prose, except that the line breaks should be acknowledged somehow.
Jonathan Galassi /
Prose
Acknowledged
Breaks
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There's an old saw about journalism that the more you know about a subject, the less sense reporting about it makes.
Jonathan Galassi /
Journalism
Reporting
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Be patient, work hard and consistently, have faith in your writing, and don't be afraid to listen to constructive criticism.
Jonathan Galassi /
Faith
Be Patient
Consistently
Constructive Criticism
Criticism
Patient
Writing
Afraid
Work Hard
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I can write anywhere that's quiet. I have a study in my apartment, but I often work in the kitchen of a house that we rent in the country.
Jonathan Galassi /
Quiet
Rent
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A publisher - and I write as one - does far more than print and sell a book. It selects, nurtures, positions and promotes the writer's work.
Jonathan Galassi /
Print
Positions
Publisher
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There are courses you can take to learn the mechanics of the business, like the Radcliffe course, but I don't think they teach you how to edit.
Jonathan Galassi /
Courses
Edit
Mechanics
Radcliffe
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Poems are endlessly renewable resources. Whatever you bring to them, at whatever stage of life, gets mirrored back, refracted, reread in new ways.
Jonathan Galassi /
New Ways
Endlessly
Renewable
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Elizabeth Bishop in particular had a big impact on me personally as well as artistically. Her insistence on clarity is something I rate very highly.
Jonathan Galassi /
Big Impact
Clarity
Insistence
Rate
Bishop
Elizabeth
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The FSG story starts to lose its fairy-tale aura when filthy lucre invades the sacred enclosure, as it did ubiquitously in the every-man-for-himself Reagan era.
Jonathan Galassi /
Filthy
Sacred
Aura
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If you've worked in a company for a long time, there's a mythology that you know by heart, you don't need to look it up to evoke. It's there in your blood, as it were.
Jonathan Galassi /
Evoke
Mythology
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Eugenio Montale - born in Genoa in 1896, died in Milan, 1981 - is one of the twentieth-century Europeans who has spoken most meaningfully to American and British poets.
Jonathan Galassi /
British
Died
Milan
Europeans
Meaningfully
Poets
Spoken
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When you're in the throes of writing, I find, the lessons you've casually imparted to others are not in the forefront of your mind. Which may be good or bad. Probably both.
Jonathan Galassi /
Lessons
Good Your Mind
Good Mind Bad
Casually
Forefront
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I think publishers need to be the ones that publish the books and control that process: finding writers, helping them with their work, finding readers. I think writers need that.
Jonathan Galassi /
Helping
Publishers
Readers
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Everything is different - except for publishing itself: getting hold of an amazing author, working to make his or her book the best and best-looking it can be, telling the world.
Jonathan Galassi /
Publishing
Best Amazing World
Author
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The Futurists believed in the machine, in making a great big fuss, in being young. For a brief moment, they were arguably the most influential aesthetic provocateurs in the world.
Jonathan Galassi /
Aesthetic
Influential
Great Moment World
Arguably
Brief
Brief Moment
Fuss
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I love poetry; it's my primary literary interest, and I suppose the kind of reading you do when you are reading poems - close reading - can carry over into how you read other things.
Jonathan Galassi /
Literary
Suppose
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The price of an e-book is a lot less than the price that we're charging for a hardcover book. It's about the same as we charge for a paperback. And that means a different revenue stream.
Jonathan Galassi /
Revenue
Charge
Hardcover
Paperback
Price
Stream
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Poetry is really about your mental state or intellectual, and where you are, and you're trying to evoke that, explain it to yourself, whatever, you're trying to dig into it, analyse yourself.
Jonathan Galassi /
Evoke
Analyse
Dig
Explain
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There's been a fragmentation of how the market functions, but I believe printed books are here to stay. People like the tactile experience, the smell of them; there's a great romance to them.
Jonathan Galassi /
Fragmentation
Printed
Romance
Smell
Tactile
Experience Great Believe
Functions
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Poetry is not mainstream, but then neither is serious fiction, really. But I don't think there's a lot to worry about in this particular 'problem'. Why does art have to be mainstream to be significant?
Jonathan Galassi /
Mainstream
Significant
Neither
Particular Problem
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I was nearly 40 when I published my first book. I was a slow starter - or rather, I was slow to gather my work together, though I had published translations, mainly of the Italian poet Montale, by then.
Jonathan Galassi /
Italian
Translations
Nearly
Gather
Mainly
Published
Slow
Starter
Work Together
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I'll tell you - there's no author that wants to give his mother an e-book of his new book. I think he wants to present her with - or she - wants to present her with something beautiful that he or she created.
Jonathan Galassi /
Author
He Or She
New Book
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My biggest concern about the market is the force that acts to drive down price, because I think that's destructive to authors as well as publishers. Our biggest battle is to underline the value of intellectual property.
Jonathan Galassi /
Battle
Concern
Destructive
Force
Intellectual Property
Publishers
Acts
Authors
Market
Price
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Giving oneself permission to write to begin with is the first enormous challenge. But you discover that this permission involves a requirement: To write about things that are difficult because they are, in fact, your subject.
Jonathan Galassi /
Enormous
Oneself
Permission
Discover
Involves
Requirement
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I think that the continuity of what I do as an editor with what I did when I started out 40 years ago is very direct. The delivery system is changing and will continue to, but the actual interaction between publisher and author is exactly the same.
Jonathan Galassi /
Continuity
Delivery
Interaction
Actual
Author
Editor
Exactly The Same
Publisher
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A translation needs to read convincingly. There's no limit to what can go into it in terms of background research, feeling, or your own interests in form and history. But what should come out is something that reads as convincing English-language text.
Jonathan Galassi /
Convincing
Limit
No Limit
Reads
Text
Translation
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One thing I have noticed is that when you're a younger editor, you're more intense about it. As you go along, you relax a little. More and more, I feel that the book is the author's. You give the author your thoughts, and it's up to him or her to decide what to do.
Jonathan Galassi /
Intense
Relax
Younger
Author
Editor
More And More
Noticed
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The thing that happened with the music business, there are no stores anymore where you can buy music. It's all an online business now, and that's, you know - the bookstore culture is a very vibrant part of the American experience that we're very reluctant to see go away.
Jonathan Galassi /
Music Business
Online
Reluctant
American Experience
Bookstore
Go Away
Vibrant
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I think that a really good agent should be able to get the right publisher, which the agent has already figured out, get as much money as she can from that publisher, and make a deal, rather than have the amount of money determine the sale. That's what the best agents do.
Jonathan Galassi /
Determine
Best Good Money
Agent
As Much Money
Figured
Publisher
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I wanted to be involved with literature. I certainly wasn't going to be able to write for a living, and I didn't have enough confidence in my talent to think that I should be just doing that. Publishing seemed like fun to me - to be involved with writers. And it did turn out to be.
Jonathan Galassi /
Confidence
Involved
Literature
Publishing
Talent
Certainly
Me Fun Confidence
Writers
Seemed
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I deal with the authors I work with, agents, and other departments of the company, talking about both the books that I'm working on and everyone else's. Then there's dealing with foreign publishers: foreigners visit all the time. People want to bounce things off the publisher, and a lot of it is encouragement.
Jonathan Galassi /
Encouragement
Agents
Bounce
Foreigners
Time Work People
Authors
Dealing
Departments
Work Time People
Publisher
Time People
Visit
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Writer
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Philosopher
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Poet
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Author
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Philosopher
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Jonathan Galassi Quotes - Page 1

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