Wisdom.

We listened to Robert Gottlieb tonight. He never speaks publicly. Ever. But he's a legend as an editor (Bill Clinton, Joseph Heller, Katharine Graham, Michael Crichton, John LeCarre, Robert A. Caro, Toni Morrison), and he gave me enough material to take three pages of notes, the most I've taken in a looong time. The verdict? I can't wait to get into this industry. And I've still yet to meet and listen to Chip Kidd, which happens Monday night; I'm going to be in the very front row for that one.

"What is publishing? Making public your enthusiasm for a specific book. It's that simple, and it is anything but simple."

"'I loved this book so much, but I couldn't tell anybody. So I made a cup of tea and sat down and told myself!' That's the publishing impulse. But now it's all marketing and chains."

"The rule in publishing is that you have to do everything right, because you don't know what will make the difference. Even then, sometimes it just doesn't work."

"Don't try to edit something you don't like. It only ends in tears. Your job is to make something better than what it is, not other than what it is."

"All of the executives left Simon & Schuster at that time. Six of us, of which I was the youngest, ran the house, because nobody told us we couldn't."

"Every editor's memoirs would begin with the same line: 'And so I said to Leo, don't just write about war, write about peace too.'"

"You hold the professional trust of the writer; you must tell him the things he himself knows, but is trying to deny."

"Editing Bill was great. I would write in the margin of the manuscript 'This is the single most boring page I've ever read.' And he would write in response 'No, page 311 is more boring.'"

"Book publishing is tedious, it takes years for the returns, and there are a hundred steps, any of which can go wrong, and all of which will."

"The hardest thing about reviewing ballet is How do you conveigh with words what uses no words? To say what is unsayable?"

"The more you read, the better an editor you should be. Don't be in awe of fiction; much of it is garbage. The most successful authors are often the best, and that is comforting. It has to be. After all, imagine the alternative."

"You have to have the attitude of 'We're here to publish the best. Let somebody else do the second best.'"

"None of you will ever have to deal with a Caro for as long as you live. The level of detail was almost inhuman."

"You're as good an editor on your first day as you are on your last. It's just an application of taste to words."