Aging & Wisdom Quote by Irwin Shaw

Youth, for Shaw, is less a biological category than a permission slip: the right to write badly, quickly, and often without it calcifying into reputation. Calling any short burst of writing a "marvelous apprenticeship" quietly demotes the romantic myth of the born novelist. Craft, he implies, is accumulated the way calluses are: through repetitive contact with the page, not through a single inspired breakthrough.

The phrasing does sly work. "Any kind of writing" flattens the hierarchy that separates lofty fiction from supposedly lesser forms - reviews, copy, scripts, even hackwork. Shaw came up in an era where many serious writers paid rent through magazines, radio, and Hollywood; he knew that commercial constraints can teach pacing, clarity, and audience awareness faster than solitary self-expression. The line also smuggles in a deadline ethic: "short period of time" suggests intensity over permanence, a season of sprinting that builds muscle before you start insisting on your masterpiece.

There's tenderness in the conditional "If you're young enough". It acknowledges the brutal fact that the world is more forgiving early on; experimentation reads as promise, not failure. Underneath is a warning to older writers too: don’t cling to apprenticeships as a lifestyle. At some point, you trade the safety of practice for the risk of being judged on purpose. Shaw isn't sentimental about talent; he's optimistic about repetition, and a little ruthless about time.