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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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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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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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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 think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. I can't believe it when writers tell me 'I don't want to show my work to anybody'.
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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 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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Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
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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Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
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 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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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.
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 work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
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Try not to write the parts that people skip.
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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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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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
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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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.
Elmore Leonard