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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.

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.
Like
Sound
Sense
Doesn
Doe
Make

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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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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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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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.
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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
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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What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
Elmore Leonard
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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 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.
Elmore Leonard
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
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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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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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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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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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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