A Quote by Mary Norris
There is a phase in the life of every copy editor when she is obsessed with hyphens.
Related Quotes
I was a copy editor. I loved it. I love grammar. I'm obsessed. I was a bartender. I worked in a cafe. I was a dog walker. I was a babysitter. I was a tutor. Once I was asked to half-babysit, half-bartend.
But if a peaceful world is beyond politics it is also beyond religions as these presently exist. A change is needed in every phase of human life. This lies mainly in recognition that the micro phase, the particular or national traditions, must find their context and fulfillment in the macro phase, the global or panhuman phase of human existence.
I come out of journalism, and then book writing. There, it's just you and your editor and maybe a copy desk, looking over your editor's shoulder, and that's the story. It's right there. I can show it to you because it's on paper.
Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find your self.
I think, for every phase of your life, you take something out of it, you learn from it, you grow from it. You just have to try to take what you can from it and then move on to the next phase of your life to be better.
I definitely divide my life into decades. Almost every ten years, something in my work life has changed. My twenties were my journalistic phase, then there was my screenwriting phase, then I became a director, then I started doing some plays.
There are two phases of enjoyment in journeying through an unknown country - the eager phase of wondering interest in every detail, and the relaxed phase when one feels no longer an observer of the exotic, but a participator in the rhythm of daily life.
This is my year of transition from what I'm calling the second phase of my life to the third phase of my life. And I wanted to pass it along. What I mean by that is, in the first days of your life you're dependent on others and you learn. You're basically a kid, depending on your parents. In the second phase of your life, you're working and others are dependent on you and you're trying to be successful. And then when you go to the third phase of your life it's no longer as much of a kick to be successful. There's a natural, instinctual desire to help other people be successful.
Which editor? I can't think of one editor I worked with as an editor. The various companies did have editors but we always acted as our own editor, so the question has no answer.
Anyone who edits their own copy has a fool for an editor.
I've had chapters in my work life that have kind of coincided with the place I am in mine. I had the best-friend phase, and the pregnant-woman phase - for a while, I was pregnant in every movie.
"I think we'll have a good potato crop this year," a newspaper editor told his housekeeper one morning. "No such thing," asserted the housekeeper. "I think the crop will be poor." Ignoring her remark, the editor caused to be inserted in the evening paper his estimate of the crop situation. That night when he returned home he found the housekeeper waiting for him with a sheepish grin on her face and a copy of the paper in her hand. "I was wrong," she said apologetically. "It says right here in the paper that the crop will be excellent this fall."
I've always avoided publicity. I've never been good copy at any stage of my life. I don't strive for it, because I don't think it's important whether I'm good copy or not. The two can go together, if that's your personality, but every person on this earth is unique.
I was struggling, I was hungry, I was a freelance copy editor but had very little work.
I've earned my living in all sorts of terrible ways - as a janitor, a copy editor, a psychotherapist.
I was in a phase when I was obsessed - I still am - with fortunetellers and psychics.
