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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.
Parts
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More quotes by Elmore Leonard

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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.
Elmore Leonard
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
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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
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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.
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.
Elmore Leonard
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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
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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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
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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.
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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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 don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
Elmore Leonard
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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
Elmore Leonard
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To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
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.
Elmore Leonard
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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
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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.
Elmore Leonard