Irwin Shaw was a famous Novelist from USA, who lived between February 27, 1913 and May 16, 1984. He/she became 71 years old.
Zodiac:
He/she is born under the zodiac pisces, who is known for Fluctuation, Depth, Imagination, Reactive, Indecisive.
Our collection contains 38 quotes who is written / told by Irwin.
38 Famous quotes by Irwin Shaw
"Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing"
"In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75"
"I've gone on the wagon, but my body doesn't believe it"
"I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various"
"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"
"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"
"Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life"
"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"
"In the theater, characters have to cut the umbilical cord from the writer and talk in their own voices"
"At the height of the McCarthy period, writers were being hounded"
"A writer has to live with a sense of honor"
"Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it"
"Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form"
"My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever"
"Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House"
"Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American"
"In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that"
"I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans"
"A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much"
"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"
"I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal"
"Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure; obviously, he was no sissy"
"In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody"
"I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?"
"Curiously, the United States is full of writers who have one big work in their life and that's all"
"A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor"
"My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me"
"If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship"
"I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young"
"I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it"
"I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober"
"All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one"
"My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have"
"It's those damn critics again"
"I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written"
"I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself"
"Every novelist has a different purpose - and often several purposes which might even be contradictory"
"You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer"
