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I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.'

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.
Nuts
Drive
Fun
Told
Writing
Long
Time

More quotes by 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.
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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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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 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 don't believe in writer's block. I don't know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I'm going to get through. It's just a matter of finding a way.
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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 want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
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If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
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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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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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.
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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. I can't believe it when writers tell me 'I don't want to show my work to anybody'.
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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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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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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Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
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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.
Elmore Leonard