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

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
Book
Attitudes
Would
Attitude
Changed
Somebody
Books
Literature
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More quotes by Irwin Shaw

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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.
Irwin Shaw
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Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form
Irwin Shaw
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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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No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.
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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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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.
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.
Irwin Shaw
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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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A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.
Irwin Shaw
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In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75
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I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?
Irwin Shaw
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My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me
Irwin Shaw
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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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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!
Irwin Shaw
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I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal
Irwin Shaw
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Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure obviously, he was no sissy.
Irwin Shaw
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All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
Irwin Shaw