Irwin Shaw Quotes

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Irwin Shaw

Profession : Novelist

Birth : February 27, 1913

I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young.

Irwin Shaw

At the height of the McCarthy period, writers were being hounded.

Irwin Shaw

Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House.

Irwin Shaw

Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure; obviously, he was no sissy.

Irwin Shaw

I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans.

Irwin Shaw

In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75.

Irwin Shaw

In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that.

Irwin Shaw

Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American.

Irwin Shaw

People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly.

Irwin Shaw

Curiously, the United States is full of writers who have one big work in their life and that's all.

Irwin Shaw

The great writers just kept bringing them out. They didn't care if they repeated themselves.

Irwin Shaw

I've gone on the wagon, but my body doesn't believe it.

Irwin Shaw

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

I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it.

Irwin Shaw

The writer works in a lonely way.

Irwin Shaw

In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody.

Irwin Shaw

A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.

Irwin Shaw

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever.

Irwin Shaw

A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much.

Irwin Shaw

I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various.

Irwin Shaw