Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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.
Men
Already
Told
Eyes
Eye
Black
Tell
Two
Nothing
Twice
More quotes by 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
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
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
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
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
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
There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
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
I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
Elmore Leonard
To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started 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
Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
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
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
Skip the boring parts.
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
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
All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
Elmore Leonard
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
Elmore Leonard
