Quotes About Editing

#1. I realized - and I am probably the last person in the world to realize this - that we live our lives with no editing.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

#2. I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing.

Sarah Dessen

#3. I tend to elongate the sentences as I'm writing and editing, and there is just something about the feeling of writing longhand that I really love.

Lily King

#4. I wish I could play music. I think I get as closeas possible with the editing of the films. Over the years musichas been an even more important influence than-or as important as-film.There's no doubt about it. Painting, movement, dance, sculpture-it'sall in cinema.

Martin Scorsese

#5. If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.

David Benioff

#6. Sometimes you just create a joke out of thin air in the editing room. So I'm really glad I've had that experience. It gives me a little more confidence in front of the camera.

Ed Helms

#7. Waiting for the German verb is surely the ultimate thrill.

Flann O'Brien

#8. I am not altogether confident of my ability to put my thoughts into words: My texts are usually better after an editor has hacked away at them, and I am used to both editing and being edited. Which is to say that I am not oversensitive in such matters.

Stieg Larsson

#9. Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, and social media is an arduous and nerve-wracking process.

Paul Di Filippo

#10. There is anxiety, but it comes after you've finished filming because it's out of your hands; people are editing it, they're cutting it, marketing it. And it's ... part your career sort of rides on that. But when you're actually filming it's a team thing and it really feels good there for me.

Hugh Jackman

#11. You know, I do music. If you look under the hood of the industry I'm in, it's all based on technology. From radio to phonographs to CDs, it's all technology. Microphones, reel-to-reels, cameras, editing, chips, it's all technology.

Will.i.am

#12. In the editing room, 20 percent of the time you're using stuff from before the actor knew the camera was rolling or you're taking a line from somewhere else and putting it in his mouth.

Campbell Scott

#13. I realized that a lot of the great directors that I admire from [Ingmar] Bergman to [Fredrico] Fellini re always shooting, then going into the editing room, and shooting again.

Marc Forster

#14. Once I'm in the editing room, forget about what I intended to shoot. I take a cold, hard look at what I really did shoot, and then I edit that because, if you try to edit what you intended and you missed somewhere, that will show up.

Doug Liman

#15. I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography.

Bonnie Raitt

#16. Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work. It's like making a hard core adult film, and then editing it so that it can be shown in British hotels. You'd just end up with a sort of half hour close up of some bloke's sweaty face.

Jeremy Clarkson

#17. Editing is such a voyeuristic treat for me. I land on a theme and ask authors to pen works that fit the topic.

Alison Tyler

#18. People come up to me and say "Steve, what is film editing?" And I say "How should I know? You're the director.

Steve Martin

#19. Most fledgling and mid-list writers are lucky to be offered a 4-figure sum and are not only expected to deliver copy that needs minimal editing but also take an active part in marketing and publicizing their work.

Sara Sheridan

#20. Basically, editing is done in rehearsal and in the writing process and in the acting, so it's very, very tricky, very, very tricky.

Julie Delpy

#21. I'm a big fan of editing and keeping only the interesting bits in.

Sarah Vowell

#22. I took courses at USC in film editing and art direction and photography when I was still in high school.

Ray Harryhausen

#23. The bottom line is that your performance is made in the editing room.

Brent Sexton

#24. I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

Spike Jonze

#25. I spend a lot of time in preproduction working with authors, and a lot of time in postproduction.: editing, music, all that sort of stuff. Casting. On the set there's not a lot for me to do.

Charlie Kaufman

#26. The most basic rule of editing is that if you can't bear to read it, no one else can either. So when you find yourself skimming, commit murder.

Marion Roach Smith

#27. I am somebody who usually writes out the rough draft in longhand. Then I type it into the computer, and that is where I do my editing. I find that if I write it on the computer, I go too quick. So I like getting that first draft out and then typing it in; you are less self-conscious about it.

Barack Obama

#28. When you're done shooting, the movie that you're going to release when you're done shooting is as bad as it will ever be. And then through editing, and finishing the effects and adding music, you get to make the movie better again. So I'm really hard on myself and on the movie.

Barry Sonnenfeld

#29. A lot of it is found in the editing room and part of that is due to some of the improvisational tactics we employ on set. Part of it is that the shot goes a little bit long and they end up coming down to fit time.

Mark Duplass

#30. (R)eality TV (is) a medium dedicated to the proposition that with the help of judicious editing, carefully chosen half-wits can hold the attention of millions of their fellow half-wits for weeks on end.

Terry Teachout

#31. Editing is like attending a ten year reunion with your characters.

Stephanie Ayers

#32. Feature filmmaking is a different kind of complication as documentary comes in the editing room.

Nicholas Jarecki

#33. The problems I have with a flawed script are always revealed in the editing room.

Xavier Dolan

#34. Every syllable that can be struck out is pure profit, and every page that can be economised is a five-per-cent dividend. Nature rebels against this rule; the flesh is weak, and shrinks from the scissors; I groan in retrospect over the weak.

Henry Adams

#35. Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.

James Tate

#36. The film's dramatic requirements should always take precedence over the mere aesthetics of editing.

Edward Dmytryk

#37. The greatest films ever made in our history were cut on film, and I'm tenaciously hanging on to the process. I just love going into an editing room and smelling the photochemistry and seeing my editor wearing mini-strands of film around his neck.

Steven Spielberg

#38. Editing is like strawberries put on the table as a centerpiece, before the full course meal, but, you don't want them to become spoiled, or your guests will go to the neighbor's house next door.

Angel M.B. Chadwick

#39. I think an editing style is something that is ascribed to the work after-the-fact. I don't think you go in with a particular intention, but I think if there is an integrity to the work and the material you are working with, the work comes from the nature of that material.

Jay Cassidy

#40. I got to spend all of my time every day at work reading and editing papers about cutting-edge technical research and getting paid for it. Then I'd go home at night and turn what I learned into science fiction stories.

Kevin J. Anderson

#41. Most of my material is , it doesn't necessarily involve a lot of editing. So even the show with the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, I don't have to worry about some of the material being inappropriate.

Jim Gaffigan

#42. Having gone through editing process, I can see that in actor's faces there's point where they're not managing their performance and that's, I think, the best place to be. You've done the homework, you've learned the lines, at that point you just sort of let it out.

Ralph Fiennes

#43. From 2005 to 2010, I was exclusively shooting 'The Act of Killing' and then editing it.

Joshua Oppenheimer

#44. We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we're afraid to let them see it in us. We're afraid that our truth isn't enough - that what we have to offer isn't enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.

Brene Brown

#45. Make sure your message is clear, yet that you are faithful to its complexity.

Michael Dirda

#46. I don't think music affects what words I choose to type in what order, within what punctuation, at this point, because I'm rereading and editing each sentence, at this point, in my published books, probably 100-150 times each, on average, and listening to probably 20-60 different songs in that time.

Tao Lin

#47. There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.

Fred Rodell

#48. For most people, I edit. Most people are definitely getting along on the Cliffs Notes.

Suzanne Finnamore

#49. Self-editing is the way I write. Ten verses of a song and it's finished. Then we start playing it and if I see that it's too long, I'll start cutting.

Nick Cave

#50. I love the editing process of making movies. I just wish that life had one.

Mike Nichols

#51. Movies become art after editing. Instead of just reproducing reality, they juxtapose images of it. That implies expression; that's art.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

#52. You really like putting it all on display, don't you? No editing."
"I'm not playing games with you, Sam. I have no intention of hiding what I want; I won't make that mistake again.

Genna Rulon

#53. I love producing. I am loving doing that. I think that is my most natural space in the business. I just love producing or editing and that's where I thrive.

Will Smith

#54. When you're in the editing process, you try different things and you get creative ideas.

Catherine Hardwicke

#55. On the Web, we can be whoever we wish to be, editing the face we show to others in ways that aren't possible in physical space. We can also fine-tune the complexity and depth of our interactions and relationships.

Walter Kirn

#56. For film at the beginning of the 20th century, they didn't even know what editing was yet. Actors didn't know how to perform in front of the camera. There wasn't sound.

Tom Bissell

#57. Pro Tools is an incredible resource. I think it's enabled me to do things that I wouldn't have been able to do without this kind of computer editing.

Sufjan Stevens

#58. There's only three things you need to do when you are finished editing your book - Sleep! Sleep! and Sleep!

A. Louise Robertson

#59. I confess ... if I typo a Facebook post I will edit it. I know it's only Facebook but it's an editing sickness.

Michelle M. Pillow

#60. There are plenty of bad editors who try to impose their own vision on a book. ( ... )
A good novel editor is invisible.

Terri Windling

#61. I became really aware that when you're making a movie, you're making it three times. You're making it when you're writing it. You're making it when you're shooting it. And then you're remaking it again when you're editing it.

Mark Ruffalo

#62. And then to see the whole movie, you're pretty much waiting until the end of production. And the major lifting in terms of editing and all that stuff is done before you shoot the movie. That's an unusual way to work.

Charlie Kaufman

#63. I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema: writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting.

Werner Herzog

#64. Writers are in control of editing processes - making a sentence better, cutting out a paragraph. But the initial outpouring has very little to do with conscious control or manipulation.

Siri Hustvedt

#65. I did a film that I shot in 24 hours that was self-financed for $5,000. It was a feature called Looking For Jimmy that I shot with a bunch of friends. I spent eight months editing because we had 24 hours of footage that made no sense and I learned a lot about directing while editing that film.

Julie Delpy

#66. A writer without a sense of justice or injustice would be better off editing the yearbook for a school for exceptional children.

Ernest Hemingway,

#67. If any sort of error is inexcusable, it's an incorrect phone number. One of the cardinal rules of copy editing is that every phone number published must be checked.

Bill Walsh

#68. 'Close To The Edge,' we actually had played it from beginning to end before we recorded it in the studio. So we knew how long it was, and we knew it would fit on the album fine, so we didn't do any editing.

Chris Squire

#69. Taste is an evolution and refinement of one's personal likes and dislikes. This evolution takes place with a constant curiosity and interest in everything. The editing consequently refines the choices and defines taste.

Norma Kamali

#70. Love how editing makes you more confident with your book ...but also makes you want to set it on fire at the same time.

Kira Hawke

#71. And I watch all the dailies and I grade the jokes or the moments, you know, on a scale from ... so I know exactly what we have. And so I can then go into the editing room and be like "I want you to do this moment, this moment, this joke, that joke. I'd like to see 3 versions."

Nicholas Stoller

#72. I got really excited about finding new ways of using video, and the immediacy is different, in a way, than painting and photography. The creativity comes with the editing. You can layer and cut and paste. I really love that it's like another form of making my smaller collages but in video form.

Mickalene Thomas

#73. Often you must turn your stylus to erase, if you hope to write anything worth a second reading.

Horace

#74. Movies get found in the editing room. The movie that you make is not always necessarily the movie that comes out of the editing room. The trick is to perfect the movie that you have and make it the best version of what you've shot, regardless of what the intent may have been.

Joe Dante

#75. Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor.

James Franco

#76. You know, post-production is a bit of a grind to me. If I'm producing a film, I really ... I mean I like editing, but all the other crap, the color mixing and ... it's all a grind. And so as a result I cut back producing the number of films I was producing.

John C. McGinley

#77. A film is born in my head and I kill it on paper. It is brought back to life by the actors and then killed in the camera. It is then resurrected into a third and final life in the editing room where the dismembered pieces are assembled into their finished form.

Robert Bresson

#78. There is interest in a crime-based reality show. With my novels, we are now editing the second book in a series about a defense lawyer whose name is Samantha Brinkman. And I am reviewing speaking engagement opportunities.

Marcia Clark

#79. I can hire out for editing, proofreading, formatting, and cover design, and those are fixed, sunk costs. Once those are paid, I can earn 70% on a self-pubbed ebook.

J.A. Konrath

#80. I've always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that's like my last draft of the screenplay.

Quentin Tarantino

#81. When you're writing is when the "god should I just drop this" feeling can hit. When you're editing is when the "god this is awful and I've wasted everyone's time and money and will be revealed as a fraud" feeling can hit.

Rian Johnson

#82. Only masochists can get along without editing their own memories.

Sloan Wilson

#83. Editing cannot be taught. Developing your own taste cannot be taught.

Ellen Datlow

#84. Reality TV finds talented people. There are no scripts. The editing is what it's all about. Great editing makes those shows.

Pete Waterman

#85. Any editing, software work, and mail is done in this exported Plan 9.

Dennis Ritchie

#86. There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.

Mike Mills

#87. We achieve originality of style not by avoiding the influences of others but by blending them into a combination that has not been heard before.

Scott Norton

#88. Only the writers can change or fix the past by going back to edit old works

Munia Khan

#89. I love the auditioning process. I love working with the technical guys. I absolutely love the editing room. That was completely fascinating to me, working with an editor in crafting the thing into something you had in your head.

Neil Gaiman

#90. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.

Arthur Plotnik

#91. The great correspondent of the seventeenth century Madame de Sevigne counseled, "Take chocolate in order that even the most tireome company seem acceptable to you," which is also sound advice today!

Barrie Kerper

#92. Let the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing because you have omitted every word that he can spare.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#93. The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

Steven Zaillian

#94. You never really know as an actor; it's completely out of your control, in terms of editing, and music, and film stock, shot selection, and what takes they use.

Aaron Eckhart

#95. I never leave the writer behind, because you rewrite the movie in post, or at least I do. I always do, and I feel like anybody who doesn't at least explore that possibility is short-changing themselves. Editing is the most fun and most exciting part of the process.

Steven Soderbergh

#96. The way I write is this: I write about a thousand words a day, a little bit more. The next morning, I read those thousand words and cursorily edit that. Then I write the next thousand. I do that all the way to the end of the book and then I reread the book quite a few times, editing as go through.

Walter Mosley

#97. David and I got cut out the editing process on that. We were able to affect it more than not. We sent in our notes, we were able to see cuts. We weren't allowed to see dailies and we weren't allowed to sit in the editing room and just work.

Bob Odenkirk

#98. I enjoy twitter accounts that are meticulously edited just as much as I enjoy twitter accounts that aren't edited at all, but it can feel kind of disappointing to me when I see that someone is editing their tweets out of self-consciousness.

Mira Gonzalez

#99. Writing is like making love, editing is like giving your great grandfather a sponge bath.

Midnight Taylor

#100. I really only became an editor, or started doing my own editing because I was filming the docs and you simply can't keep an editor on for as long as it takes so.

John Hyams