Quotes 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.

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

A writer has to live with a sense of honor.

It's those damn critics again.

In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75.

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

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

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

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

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

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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