Richard Curtis Quotes

I think that a really good agent should be able to get the right publisher, which the agent has already figured out, get as much money as she can from that publisher, and make a deal, rather than have the amount of money determine the sale. That's what the best agents do.

Our profession is the chastest of all; even the shadow of a fault tarnishes the luster of our finest achievements.

Probably because I really love this bookmaking and storytelling world, I'd been thinking for years about the possibility of becoming a literary agent.

Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

In the early 1980s, I spent a year working as an assistant at the Elaine Markson Literary Agency.

Agents are deal makers, and they're really, really good at making deals. But they're also exceptionally helpful after the deal is made - agents act as a good intermediary between authors and publishers whenever disagreements come up.

There are plenty of secondary characters that I had always hoped to write, but I don't know if it will ever happen. The way contracts work, if you leave one publishing house for another, the characters tend to stay with the previous publishing house.

Business ethics has always had problems that are distinct from those of other professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, or nursing.

You have to remember that in addition to running a literary agency, I am also an ebook publisher.

No agent/publisher is in a position to create across a spectrum of media and distribution what major publishers can accomplish for authors.

Agents are essential, because publishers will not read unsolicited manuscripts.

It is impossible for me, with any agreement to my sense of propriety, to accept any sort of compensation for services which I may endeavor to do upon a public account.

I'm a member of the Writers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of Canada.

As I see it, my job has always been to champion the work of the authors I publish.

Everyone here would die for the sake of truth. Everyone here lies constantly for the tiniest chance of personal gain. This is what it means to be a scientist.

There is no such thing as business ethics. There is only one kind -- you have to adhere to the highest standards.

The higher the standard of education in a profession, the less marked will be the charlatanism.

You have the quality of your work and the integrity with which you do it.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by how one thinks and acts.

That alone is wise which is just; that alone is enduring which is right.

Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define the "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival".

I do object to the sensationalism or even the voyeurism of doing things in church or out of church.

My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth.

You cannot be naïve about evil. You cannot be naïve to the reality that there are human beings and human situations which have totally identified with the dark side of reality. They are malicious. Realism teaches you to put up appropriate boundaries so that people can't do any more evil than possible. But that doesn't mean you do evil back to them.

Through life let your principal object be the discharge of duty.