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"All of the changes in publishing since 1960 are significant. There are far fewer publishers."
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"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy."

"The real effect of the WTC calamity has been depressed spirits, anxiety, and uncertainty among publishers, and of course those emotions are not restricted to publishers."

"McSweeney's as a publishing company is built on a business model that only works when we sell physical books. So we try to put a lot of effort into the design and production of the book-as-object."

"Publishers like a good buzz, and negative responses sell books just as well as positive ones."

"The biggest threat to authors in this age is not plagiarism or poverty, it's obscurity."

"We now open our mail with gloves and mask, though I can't imagine why anyone would target a literary agency!"

"Wanted has gone into second, third and fourth printings of the individual issues and the north American printings of Wanted #1 are now close to 100,000."

"I was publishing when I was 20, 21. And it really never stopped."

"He left to do whatever editors do."
Explore more quotes by Donald E. Westlake

"A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview."

"Nothing about it interested me. Or about anything else, except making up stories. If literacy weren't so nearly universal, God knows what I'd be. A drain on the State, I shouldn't wonder."

"I loved it, but social reality impeded. Now I wander in here at 9 in the morning or so, and come back for a while in the afternoon. I am a very lenient boss."

"My work schedule has changed over the years. The one constant is, when at work on a novel, I try to work seven days a week, so as not to lose touch with that world. Within that, I'm flexible on hours and output."

"I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off."

"Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote."

"If it weren't for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn't have any ideas at all."

"When Stark isn't off sulking somewhere, or whatever he's doing when he won't return my calls, I alternate between the two. That usually works well, though occasionally an idea for the wrong guy drifts through my mind."
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