Daily Inspiration Quote by Jerry Pournelle

"And that's another piece of advice I'll give junior writers; when you get to the point where they take you to lunch, let the editor suggest where to go"

Jerry Pournelle, Journalist

About this Quote

A free lunch is never just a sandwich; its real menu is status, leverage, and who gets to feel important. Pournelle’s advice lands with the dry grin of someone who’s watched young writers mistake access for autonomy. “When they take you to lunch” is a tell: you’re being recruited into a relationship where the currency isn’t cash, it’s attention. And the smallest gesture - choosing the restaurant - becomes a proxy battle over power.

The line works because it treats etiquette as strategy. Letting the editor pick isn’t submission so much as refusing to play the wrong game. Junior writers often think asserting preferences signals confidence. In media, it can read as a misunderstanding of the room. The editor isn’t just a person with taste; they’re a gatekeeper managing budget, schedule, and social hierarchy. If they’re paying, they’re also curating the tone of the meeting: celebratory, corrective, intimate, transactional. Your job is to write; theirs is to decide where writing goes to live or die.

Subtext: don’t confuse being courted with being equal. The lunch isn’t a reward; it’s part of the editorial machine, a soft setting for shaping a voice, setting expectations, testing temperament. Pournelle’s veteran cynicism is practical: conserve your bargaining chips for the page rate, the edit, the byline, the next assignment. Let them pick the restaurant; you pick the hill you’ll actually fight on.

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Topic	Writing
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About the Author

Jerry Pournelle (August 7, 1933 - September 8, 2017) was a Journalist from USA.

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