Quote

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

Elmore Leonard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
Worries
Worry
Nothing
Take
Work
Mind
Like

More quotes by Elmore Leonard

Image
I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Try not to write the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
Elmore Leonard
Image
It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
Image
Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
Image
I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy.
Elmore Leonard