Quotes By Irwin Shaw

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

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

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

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever.

If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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