Jonathan Galassi Work Quotations

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.

Be patient, work hard and consistently, have faith in your writing, and don't be afraid to listen to constructive criticism.

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.

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.

An e-book distributor is not a publisher, but rather a purveyor of work that has already been created.

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.

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.

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.