Quote

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.

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
World
Talent
Stand
Almost
Inflicts
Ability
Equipment
Upon
Punishment
Hands
Absolutely
Part
Necessary
Writing
Writer

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A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.
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In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75
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Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
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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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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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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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My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me
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Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.
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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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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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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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I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans
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Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.
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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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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
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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.
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No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.
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