"Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing"
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Quote collection
Irwin Shaw quotes (page 3 of 3)
49 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?"
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"Curiously, the United States is full of writers who have one big work in their life and that's all."
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"Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven."
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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 reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written"
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"A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor."
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"I never show anything to anybody until I've finished 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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