Daily Inspiration Quote by George Dennison Prentice

Prentice’s line is a newsroom dagger disguised as a parlor joke: a pin, the humblest tool on a sewing cushion, outperforms “some authors” on the two traits that supposedly justify their bylines. The pun does the heavy lifting. “Head” is both literal (the pin’s rounded top) and metaphorical (brains, judgment, editorial sense). “Point” is literal sharpness and rhetorical aim: the ability to pierce confusion, land an argument, or at least arrive somewhere specific. In one clean snap, Prentice reduces a certain kind of writer to decorative bulk - all surface, no penetration.

The intent isn’t merely to insult; it’s to establish a standard. As an editor in the 19th-century press world, Prentice lived amid pamphleteering, partisan screeds, and florid prose that treated word count like proof of importance. The quip polices that ecosystem. It flatters concision and exactness, the virtues of a good editorial paragraph, by contrasting them with authors who mistake verbosity for substance. The pin is small, cheap, and designed for a purpose; so should writing be.

The subtext is professional jealousy sharpened into craft pride. Editors were (and are) the people paid to notice when prose has no “point,” when a piece presents a “head” full of noise rather than thought. Prentice’s joke also hints at media hierarchy: authors may get the glory, but the editor reserves the right to puncture pretension. It’s wit as quality control, and cynicism as a public service.