H. W. Shaw Quotes

You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.

Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately

People must not be forced to adopt me as their favourite author, even for their own good.

What is wrong with the prosaic Englishman is what is wrong with the prosaic men of all countries: stupidity.

This is my father. Try what you can with him! He won't listen to me, because he remembers what a fool I was when I was a baby.

I am a sort of collector of religions: and the curious thing is that I find I can believe in them all.

Well, sir, you never can tell. That's a principle in life with me, sir, if you'll excuse my having such a thing.

If only for a half hour a day, a child should do something serviceable to the community

He said that private practice in medicine ought to be put down by law. When I asked him why, he said that private doctors were ignorant licensed murders.

He who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none: he who has something to assert will go as far in power of style as its momentousness and his conviction will carry him

The conversion of Paul was no conversion at all; it was Paul who converted the religion that has raised one man above sin and death.

Communism, being the lay form of Catholicism, and indeed meaning the same thing, has never had any lack of chaplains.

The salvation of the world depends on the men who will not take evil good-humouredly, and whose laughter destroys the fool instead of encouraging him.

The domestic career is no more natural to all women than the military career is natural to all men.

Human misery is so appalling nowadays that if we allowed ourselves to dwell on it we should only add imaginary miseries of our own to the real miseries of others without doing them any good.

Vulgarity is a necessary part of a complete author's equipment; and the clown is sometimes the best part of the circus.

If associations to control burglary and murder were tolerated we should take it for granted that the members should all be burglers and murderers.

If pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing.

There is in man a specific lust for cruelty which infects even his passion of pity and makes it savage.

I occasionally swank a little because people like it; a modest man is such a nuisance.

When a prisoner sees the door of his dungeon open, he dashes for it without stopping to think where he shall get his dinner outside.

People always get tired of one another. I grow tired of myself whenever I am left alone for ten minutes, and I am certain that I am fonder of myself than anyone can be of another person.

He who bears the brand of Cain shall rule the earth.

This souls'prison we call England.

Nothing is more dreadful than a husband who keeps telling you everything he thinks, and always wants to know what you think.

I am very subtle; but Man is deeper in his thought than I am. The woman knows that there is no such thing as nothing: the man knows that there is no such day as tomorrow. I do well to worship them.

Don't ask me for promises until I know what I am promising.

The poor silly-clever Irishman takes off his hat to God's Englishman.

You can rave about Stravinsky without the slightest risk of being classified as a lunatic by the next generation .

It would positively be a relief to me to dig Shakespeare up and throw stones at him.

I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it

A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.

I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written

All writers are the same - they forget a thousand good reviews and remember one bad one.

Curiously, the United States is full of writers who have one big work in their life and that's all.

Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing

The writer works in a lonely way.

In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody

Writers of fiction, when they begin, are more likely to try the short form

You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford the time to take the chance to write what you wish.

Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House

In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that.

In Europe, a writer is supposed to improve up until he's about 75

Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American.

My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have

You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer

They say the one thing that people who live the longest have in common is that they have a religious belief.

When you're younger, you go out and you're convivial because you have to be. But once you don't have to meet people anymore, what's your motivation in going out?