There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the imbalance between aspiring writers and qualified editors in the literary world.
Stephen Ambrose points out the disparity in the writing and publishing industry, suggesting that while many people dream of being writers, there are far fewer who possess the skills and expertise to edit and refine those writings into a polished product. This emphasizes the importance of quality editing in ensuring that writing reaches its full potential.
In practice
In a workshop for aspiring authors, you might say, 'Remember, there are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.'
At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, and they didn't want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So they fought, and won, and we all of us, living and yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.
Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.
The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.
The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.
Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.
There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definitive, and concrete. The greatest writers - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare - are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.
I do think imagination is enormously valuable, and that children should be encouraged in their imagination. That's very true.
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
We live in a society that penalizes highly creative individuals for their non-conformist autonomy. This makes the teaching of problem solving in design both discouraging and difficult. A...student (has) massive blocks against new ways of thinking, engendered by some 16 years of mis-education.
I could undertake to be an efficient pupil if it were possible to find an efficient teacher.
In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them.
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