Quotes by Irwin Shaw

About Irwin Shaw:

Irwin Shaw is best known for two of his novels: The Young Lions (1948), about the fate of three soldiers during World War II, made into a film of the same name starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Rich Man, Poor Man (1970), about the fate of three siblings after World War II, that was made into a popular miniseries starring Nick Nolte. Though Shaw's work received widespread critical acclaim, the success of his commercial fiction ultimately diminished his literary reputation.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I look at everything. God gave me eyes and I look at women and men and subway excavations and moving pictures and the little flowers of the field. I casually inspect the universe.

Irwin Shaw

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

Irwin Shaw

Now,' Elias said, 'if only I didn't have to go home to my lousy wife. I married her in 1929. A lot of things've changed since 1929.' He sighed. 'What's a woman?' he asked. 'A Woman is a trap.

Irwin Shaw

The world," said Pavone, "will swing to the left. The whole world except America. The world will swing, not because people read Karl Marx, or because agitators will come out of Russia, but because, after the war is over, that will be the only way the...

Irwin Shaw

The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.

Irwin Shaw

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

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

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

Irwin Shaw

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

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

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

Irwin Shaw

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

All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.

Irwin Shaw

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

Irwin Shaw

Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life.

Irwin Shaw

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

Irwin Shaw

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

Every novelist has a different purpose - and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.

Irwin Shaw

I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself.

Irwin Shaw

A writer has to live with a sense of honor.

Irwin Shaw

Author Bio

  • NameIrwin Shaw
  • DescriptionAmerican politician
  • BornFebruary 27, 1913
  • DiedMay 16, 1984
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPlaywright; Screenwriter; Novelist; Writer
  • WorksBury The Dead; Rich Man, Poor Man