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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

World

Hands

Stand

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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. "

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

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

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

" In the theater, characters have to cut the umbilical cord from the writer and talk in their own voices. "

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

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" There are too many books I haven't read, too many places I haven't seen, too many memories I haven't kept long enough. "

" Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form. "

" It's those damn critics again. "

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

Irwin Shaw

Improve

Until

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

Irwin Shaw

Deal

Writer

" Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it. "

" I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written. "

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

" I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel? "

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

" Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing. "

" I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal. "

Irwin Shaw

Become

First

" 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

Glasses

Dead

" My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me. "

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

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

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

Irwin Shaw

Dark

Down

" 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. "

" My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever. "

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

" The writer works in a lonely way. "

" 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. "