Irwin Shaw

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

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.

A writer has to live with a sense of honor.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

We know: of course, with regard to the market and similar social structures, a great many facts which we cannot measure and on which indeed we have only some very imprecise and general information.