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There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.

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.
Work
Mind
Like
Worries
Worry
Nothing
Take

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

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Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
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I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
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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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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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If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
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Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
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I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
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It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
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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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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.
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There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or oceans, rockbound or with palm trees. And there are cities like Detroit that have to work for a living.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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 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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I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
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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.'
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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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