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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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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.
Tell
Two
Nothing
Twice
Men
Already
Told
Eyes
Eye
Black

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I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
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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.
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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
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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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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
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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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Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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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.
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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 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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To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard