Quotes from Irwin Shaw

Why does a man spend fifty years of his life in an occupation that is often painful? I once told a class I was teaching that writing is an intellectual contact sport, similar in some respects to football. The effort required can be exhausting, the goal unreached, and you are hurt on almost every play; but that doesn't deprive a man or a boy from getting peculiar pleasures from the game.

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.

You're a good model for a German soldier, except for the hair. You look as though you once had a thought in your head and that's hard to find.

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

The writer works in a lonely way.