Quote

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.

Elmore Leonard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Happy
Thing
Much
Never
Guys
Simply
Pretty
Guy

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

Image
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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