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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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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
Popular
Critics
Master
Masters
Novel
Literature
Song
Cringe
Unpopular

More quotes by Irwin Shaw

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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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I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal
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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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Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.
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I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young
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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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All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.
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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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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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Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
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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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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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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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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 for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life
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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