H. W. Shaw Quotes

A third variety of drama ... begins as tragedy with scraps of fun in it ... and ends in comedy without mirth in it, the place of mirth being taken by a more or less bitter and critical irony.

I must ... warn my readers that my attacks are directed against themselves, not against my stage figures.

I am highly susceptible to the force of all truly religious music, especially to the music of my own church, the church of Shelley, Michelangelo, and Beethoven.

Bourgeois morality is largely a system of making cheap virtues a cloak for expensive vices.

The fact is that the intrinsic worth of the book, play or whatever the author is trying to sell is the least, last factor in the the whole transaction.

Taking all the round of professions and occupations, you will find that every man is the worse for being poor; and the doctor is a specially dangerous man when poor.

Style is effectiveness of assertion.

You know, Tolstoy, like myself, wasn't taken in by superstitions like science and medicine.

I must have been an insufferable child; all children are.

The test to which all methods of treatment are finally brought is whether they are lucrative to doctors or not.

I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self.

Rebecca [West] can handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could and much more savagely.

To a professional critic (I have been one myself) theatre-going is the curse of Adam. The play is the evil he is paid to endure in the sweat of his brow; and the sooner it is over, the better.

We must not stay as we are, doing always what was done last time; or we shall stick in the mud.

It is in the hour of trial that a man finds his true profession.

Every girl has a right to be loved.

The ability to make witty observations is commonly refered to as "cynism" by people who lack it.

Instead of Otello being an Italian opera written in the style of Shakespeare, Othello is a play written by Shakespeare in the style of Italian opera.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

General consultant to mankind.

I can't turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.

Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.

Morals are a luxury of the rich.

A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.

Decency cannot be discussed without indecency!

Everyone can see that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who don't are the wrong ones.

Love is an appetite which, like all other appetites, is destroyed for the moment by its gratification.

Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions.

That older and greater church to which I belong: the church where the oftener you laugh the better, because by laughter only can you destroy evil without malice

A woman whose face looked as if it had been made of sugar and someone had licked it.

Well, upon my soul! You are not ashamed to stand there and confess yourself a disgusting drunkard.

If you cannot have what you believe in you must believe in what you have.

The fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully everything we have become accustomed to.

If you can say a thing with one stroke, unanswerably you have style; if not, you are at best a marchande de plaisir; a decorative litt

Financiers live in a world of illusion. They count on something which they call the capital of the country, which has no existence.

I do not want actors and actresses to understand my plays. That is not necessary. If they will only pronounce the correct sounds I can guarantee the results.

Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention.

We are the masters at the moment, and not only at the moment, but for a very long time to come.

Who is this Baby Ruth? And what does she do?

Morality consists of suspecting other people of not being legally married.

If I bind the future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.

Dancing is a very crude attempt to get into the rhythm of life.

Nature holds no brief for the human experiment; it must stand or fall by its results.

Money is the counter that enables life to be lived socially; it is life as truly as sovereigns and banknotes are money.

I assume that to prevent illness in later life, you should never have been born at all.

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman, he may pronounce as he pleases.

He never does a proper thing without giving an improper reason for it.

You propound a complicated arithmetical problem: say cubing a number containing four digits. Give me a slate and half an hour's time, and I can produce a wrong answer.

Literature is like any other trade; you will never sell anything unless you go to the right shop.