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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.

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.
Thinks
Worry
Language
Mother
Thinking

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
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If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
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 still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
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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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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 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'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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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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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
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Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
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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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 want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
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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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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I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.'
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