Irwin Shaw

“Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”

“Walking along past the endlessly repetitive shops, I felt like a man who has drowned and gone to the supermarket of hell.”

“You can learn a lot about a man by the way he talks about his old high school.”

“The prime function of a leader is to keep hope alive.”

“History is a tragedy, not a morality tale.”

“It is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life.”

“Death is a great critic.”

“There's a sorrow and pain in everyone's life, but every now and then there's a ray of light that melts the loneliness in your heart and brings comfort like hot soup and a soft bed.”

“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 man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.”

“Artists are the only people in the world who are not serious.”

“Failure is a highly personal matter, and it has a thousand sources.”

“People who drink to drown their sorrows should be told that sorrows know how to swim.”

“After a certain age, a man is responsible for his face.”

“Comedy is a serious business.”

“The only immorality is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.”