Irwin Shaw Quotes

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?.. view

By: Irwin Shaw

I've gone on the wagon, but my body doesn't believe it... view

By: Irwin Shaw

If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young... view

By: Irwin Shaw

I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Every novelist has a different purpose - and often several purposes which might even be contradictory... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure.. view

By: Irwin Shaw

Curiously, the United States is full of writers who have one big work in their life and that's all... view

By: Irwin Shaw

At the height of the McCarthy period, writers were being hounded... view

By: Irwin Shaw

An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself... view

By: Irwin Shaw

All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one... view

By: Irwin Shaw

A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor... view

By: Irwin Shaw

A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much... view

By: Irwin Shaw

In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody... view

By: Irwin Shaw

You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford the time to take the chance to write what you wish... view

By: Irwin Shaw

A writer has to live with a sense of honor... view

By: Irwin Shaw

People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly... view

By: Irwin Shaw

The writer works in a lonely way... view

By: Irwin Shaw

You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form... view

By: Irwin Shaw

There are too many books I haven't read, too many places I haven't seen, too many memories I haven't kept long enough... view

By: Irwin Shaw

The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises... view

By: Irwin Shaw

The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out... view

By: Irwin Shaw

The great writers just kept bringing them out. They didn't care if they repeated themselves... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody... view

By: Irwin Shaw

In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that... view

By: Irwin Shaw

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid... view

By: Irwin Shaw

My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me... view

By: Irwin Shaw

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever... view

By: Irwin Shaw

My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House... view

By: Irwin Shaw

It's those damn critics again... view

By: Irwin Shaw

Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American... view

By: Irwin Shaw