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There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or oceans, rockbound or with palm trees. And there are cities like Detroit that have to work for a living.
Elmore Leonard
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Elmore Leonard
Age: 87 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 11
Died: 2013
Died: August 20
Author
Film Producer
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Dutch Leonard
Elmore John Leonard Jr.
Views
Mountains
Cities
Trees
Living
Offer
Looks
Climate
Palm
Work
Mountain
Oceans
Good
Ocean
Scenery
Like
Offers
Detroit
Tree
Palms
More quotes by Elmore Leonard
Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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Skip the boring parts.
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At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
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I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
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I don't judge in my books. I don't have to have the antagonist get shot or the protagonist win. It's just how it comes out. I'm just telling a story.
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.
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What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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I focus on characters as individuals with attitudes and write each scene from a particular character's point of view. That way, even narrative passages take on the character's sound. I don't want the reader to be aware of me, writing.
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I won't read a book that starts with a description of the weather. I don't read books over 300 pages, though I'll make an exception for Don Delillo.
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I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
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I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
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These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story.
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I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy.
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I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
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Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
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I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
