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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.
Language
Mother
Thinking
Thinks
Worry

More quotes by 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 want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
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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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
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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
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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All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
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 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
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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 left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
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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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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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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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 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'.
Elmore Leonard
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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.
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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To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
Elmore Leonard