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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.
Stills
Hemingway
Still
Good
Waste
Short
Read
Words
Doesn
Stories
More quotes by Elmore Leonard
I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
Elmore Leonard
I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
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
Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
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
My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Elmore Leonard
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
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
There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
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
If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
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
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.
Elmore Leonard
I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
Elmore Leonard
I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
Elmore Leonard
Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
