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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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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.
Read
Words
Doesn
Stories
Stills
Still
Hemingway
Good
Waste
Short

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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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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
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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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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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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.
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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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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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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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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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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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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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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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If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
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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I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard