Irwin Shaw Quotes
Irwin Shaw Quotes
- 1
A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much.
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- 2
A writer has to live with a sense of honor.
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- 3
All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
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- 4
At the height of the McCarthy period, writers were being hounded.
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- 5
Every novelist has a different purpose - and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.
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- 6
I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself.
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- 7
I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?
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- 8
I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans.
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- 9
I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various.
Irwin-ShawIrwin Shaw
- 10
I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal.
Irwin-ShawIrwin Shaw
- 11
I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.
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- 12
I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young.
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- 13
I've gone on the wagon, but my body doesn't believe it.
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- 14
In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that.
Irwin-ShawIrwin Shaw
- 15
In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75.
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- 16
My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have.
Irwin-ShawIrwin Shaw
- 17
My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever.
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- 18
My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me.
Irwin-ShawIrwin Shaw
- 19
No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.
Irwin-ShawIrwin Shaw
- 20
People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly.
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- 21
Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 22
Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 23
The great writers just kept bringing them out. They didn't care if they repeated themselves.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 24
The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 25
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.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 26
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.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 27
Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
- 28
Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
Irwin-Shaw/">Irwin Shaw
