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

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A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.
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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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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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The last paragraph in which you tell what the story is about is almost always best left out.
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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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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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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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Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure obviously, he was no sissy.
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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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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.
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I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young
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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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Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House
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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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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.
Irwin Shaw
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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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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
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Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.
Irwin Shaw