Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shawwas a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: The Young Lions, 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, about the fate of three siblings after World War II, that was made into a popular miniseries starring...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth27 February 1913
CityBronx, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure; obviously, he was no sissy.
Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American.
Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.
The writer works in a lonely way.
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.
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.
Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.
If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.
In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that.
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.
A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much.
My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me
My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have