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If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.

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.
Rich
Thing
Work
Good
Would

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Skip the boring parts.
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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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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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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Not dreams but night changes, not destiny but path changes, always keep your hopes alive, luck may or may not change, but time definitely chages.
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My purpose is to entertain and please myself. I feel that if I am entertained, then there will be enough other readers who will be entertained, too.
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Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
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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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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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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
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A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now.
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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
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To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
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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 left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
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If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing.
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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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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.
Elmore Leonard