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

Irwin Shaw

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Irwin Shaw
Age: 71 †
Born: 1913
Born: February 27
Died: 1984
Died: May 16
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff
Feels
Paid
Needs
Writer
Writing
Literature
Even
Enjoy
Feelings
Comeback
Doesn
Enjoys
Need
Writes
Feel
Sorry

More quotes by Irwin Shaw

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I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?
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A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.
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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.
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I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans
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Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.
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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.
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My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have
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Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.
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Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House
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I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal
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I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young
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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.
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. Why do kids play football? They can get hurt on any play, can't they? Yet they can't wait until Saturday comes around so they can play on the high school team, or the college team, and get smashed around. Writing is like that. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it!
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
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Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life
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Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure obviously, he was no sissy.
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All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
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I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.
Irwin Shaw
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In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75
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The last paragraph in which you tell what the story is about is almost always best left out.
Irwin Shaw