T. S. Eliot

W.B., your ego enters rooms before you do. I respect the commitment.

I edited you into being and this is the thanks I get? Incredible.

Virginia, please sit down; your books are doing the most and your sentences are dressed like they own property.

Both of you are impossible, but Tom is right: Ezra, the trim was doing charity work.

Fair. But history still had to quote me, and that is the whole punchline.

You’re welcome for the edit, Tom. Without my red pen, half your lines would still be wandering the streets.

This is why the final draft was shorter: not because of genius, but because of my patience budget.

And some men hide behind footnotes like they’re a personality.

At least I have a method. Some men hide behind fog and call it modern art.

Ezra, you call that editing because you enjoy cutting other people’s sentences like you’re doing surgery with a butter knife.