114 Quotes by Irwin Shaw

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

I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.

Now,' Elias said, 'if only I didn't have to go home to my lousy wife. I married her in 1929. A lot of things've changed since 1929.' He sighed. 'What's a woman?' he asked. 'A Woman is a trap.

I look at everything. God gave me eyes and I look at women and men and subway excavations and moving pictures and the little flowers of the field. I casually inspect the universe.

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.

И тогава видя пламъка, който изведнъж лумна на хълма извън града - малка, ярка огнена струя, която бързо се превърна в кръст, горящ на хоризонта. Той се засмя. Всичко си е както обикновено; по дяволите победадата. Долу католиците, негрите и евреите и не забравяй - весели се днес, защото утре ще гориш в пламъци. Америка си е Америка. Ние сме тук, за да ви напомним каква е истината.

Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys the writing, even if he doesn’t get paid for it.

Кейт, всеки път, когато те любя, забравям по едно лошо нещо в живота си