Quote

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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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.
Readers
Reader
Please
Purpose
Enough
Feel
Feels
Entertained
Entertain

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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'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.
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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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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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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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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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.
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.
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Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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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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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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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
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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Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
Elmore Leonard
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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
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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