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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
Doesn
Enjoys
Need
Writes
Feel
Sorry
Feels
Paid
Needs
Writer
Writing
Literature
Even
Enjoy
Feelings
Comeback

More quotes by Irwin Shaw

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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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My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have
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All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
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Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form
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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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When I started out in the early 1930s, there were a great many magazines that published short stories. Unfortunately, the short-story market has dwindled to almost nothing.
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I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans
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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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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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Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House
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The last paragraph in which you tell what the story is about is almost always best left out.
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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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I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?
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If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.
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Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.
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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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A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.
Irwin Shaw
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
Irwin Shaw
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Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life
Irwin Shaw
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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