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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.

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.
Writing
Confusing
Dialogue
Information
Given
Need
Needs

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

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My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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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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 want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
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
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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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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
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 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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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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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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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.
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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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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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
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Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
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