Writing

Thomas Sowell expounds on writing and the book industry. This quote captures Sowell's way of thinking perfectly, true and bitter:

"I do not arbitrarily dismiss copy-editors’ suggestions. I usually consider them and find them to be stupid beyond belief."

There is also some great advice. It is the kind you know is right without even knowing much about the subject and which can be applied to other contexts. In talking about book reviews, he writes:

"In the print media, the author usually has an opportunity to reply to the reviewer, but it is a dangerous opportunity, because the reviewer has the last word in his rejoinder. Playing against these odds makes sense only when you can demonstrate conclusively, in a brief space, the utter fallacy or outright lie in what the reviewer has said—and when you can resist the temptation to add other things on which the reviewer was wrong-headed, but which can’t be nailed down so readily. If you cannot resist the temptation to include the more debatable issues, then be prepared to see the reviewer ignore all the points on which you caught him red-handed and devote his whole reply to making the debatable issues crucial, even if they were tangential before."