Norman Mailer on editing

As the months of editing went on, he would feel at times like a sculptor discovering his statue. The chisel could not go where it wished, but there was a statue to be disclosed if one would follow the veins of the stone…

The good cutter is like a very good skier. He does not study the trail ahead, he sets down the mountain, makes his turns as they come, does his checks, his drops into the fall-line, his traverses into the hill, then tips around and down again. It is a beauty to watch. If we add the knowledge that he is in a race, the beauty is hardly diminished and our tension is certainly increased.

—Norman Mailer, on the editing of Maidstone