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Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.

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.
Anybody
Sound
Everyone
Write
Tell
Writing
Going
Presume

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

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Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
Elmore Leonard
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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Skip the boring parts.
Elmore Leonard
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
Elmore Leonard
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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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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If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
Elmore Leonard
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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
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard