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

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

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

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

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

It's those damn critics again.
Irwin Shaw

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

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

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever.
Irwin Shaw

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

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.
Irwin Shaw

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

Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.
Irwin Shaw

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.
Irwin Shaw

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

The writer works in a lonely way.
Irwin Shaw

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.
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