Top 100 Elmore Leonard Quotes
#1. If a man must make excuses for himself, continually argue with himself that he is a man, then he is better off dead.
Elmore Leonard
#2. Quiet and calculating. He hasn't changed that much since. Always mild-mannered, the nice guy - until someone steps over the line and challenges him.
Elmore Leonard
#3. Never open a book with weather. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
Elmore Leonard
#6. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.
Elmore Leonard
#7. 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
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. Late in the afternoon the sky changed to pale gray and there was rain in the air, the atmosphere close and stifling, and a silence clung heavily to the flat colorless plain.
Elmore Leonard
#11. A wife's faithful to her husband, subject to him. It's in the bible.
Elmore Leonard
#12. In the light of eternity, is it better to sell out and ride or stand up and walk?
Elmore Leonard
#13. If I have several bad guys and I only want to end up with one of them, then I have to decide which one I want in the end. And normally it's the one who is the most interesting talker.
Elmore Leonard
#14. And she thought if you don't have the desire to fight or wait for something there's no reason for being on earth.
Elmore Leonard
#15. I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
Elmore Leonard
#16. Yeah, ESP," Juvenal said. "You know how you do it? You listen to the other person instead of thinking of what you're gonna say next. That's all, and you learn things.
Elmore Leonard
#17. A: Anyone who looks like she does has to be somebody ...
B: What does she look like?
A: An ice cream. I had a spoon I would have eaten her.
Elmore Leonard
#19. When I get an idea for a book, something appeals to me, it's usually a character. I'll see a picture of a female marshal in front of the courthouse in Miami and she's got a shotgun on her hip and it goes up on an angle. And she's good-looking. And I say, 'I've got to use her.'
Elmore Leonard
#20. There were a lot of terms you had to learn, as opposed to the shylock business where all you had to know how to say was 'Give me the fuckin money.
Elmore Leonard
#21. If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
#22. You never know what somebody might tell you,' Chris said, 'when they think you're somebody else.
Elmore Leonard
#23. I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.
Elmore Leonard
#24. There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
#25. I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
Elmore Leonard
#26. 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.
Elmore Leonard
#27. It's like seeing someone for the first time, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it.
Elmore Leonard
#28. Writing screenplays is not my business. I've written half a dozen, and maybe half of those were made. But it was never a satisfying experience. It was just work. You're an employee. You would be told what to do. Studio execs would cross out my dialogue and put in their dialogue.
Elmore Leonard
#29. She wondered what he looked like with his hat off and wondered again if he knew he was funny.
Elmore Leonard
#30. 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
#31. I can write anywhere. But I don't use a computer, and I could never write on a laptop. I hate the sound of computers; it's too dull, like it's not doing anything for you.
Elmore Leonard
#32. I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
#33. 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
#34. Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
#35. Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.
Elmore Leonard
#36. Sometimes female characters start out as the wife or girlfriend, but then I realize, 'No, she's the book,' and she becomes a main character. I surrender the book to her.
Elmore Leonard
#37. There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.
Elmore Leonard
#38. 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
#39. You thinkin bout the time I shot you and you rose from the dead? It only happens once in your life." He turned to Carol again and she said:
"Were you actually aiming at his hat?"
"I hit it didn't I?
Elmore Leonard
#40. She said very quietly, "Mitch?" "What?" "There's somebody downstairs." "I know there is.
Elmore Leonard
#41. He saw Harvey and Edgar catch each other's eye as he looked off toward the strains of "Alley Cat," Jesus, hoping they'd rush it faster than the others or he'd have to get out of here. It was the only song he knew that made him want to break something.
Elmore Leonard
#43. 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
#44. I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Elmore Leonard
#45. I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There were a lot of pulp magazines, like 'Dime Western' and '10 Story Western' that were still being published. The better ones paid two cents a word. And I thought, 'I like Westerns.'
Elmore Leonard
#46. He called out to no one in particular, Fire in the Hole!
Elmore Leonard
#47. When you're really cute that's all you have to be, you make a career out of it. someone asks you what you do, you say, 'nothing. i'm cute.
Elmore Leonard
#48. A pen connects you to the paper. It definitely matters.
Elmore Leonard
#49. I don't get in a position to be frightened. I don't do anything dangerous, and I always pay my bills.
Elmore Leonard
#50. 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
#52. To me, writing is the most fun. It's not always fun, but finally when you make it come out the way you want, it's then you can say, 'It's fun, boy.'
Elmore Leonard
#53. I think the best advice I give is to try not to write. Try not to overwrite, try not to make it sound too good. Just use your own voice. Use your own style of putting it down.
Elmore Leonard
#54. I'm not aware of a cadence when writing, but I hear it after. I write in longhand, and that helps. You're closer to it, and you have to cross things out. You put a line through it, but it's still there. You might need it. When you erase a line on a computer, it's gone forever.
Elmore Leonard
#55. I don't have any of the modern stuff. I don't have e-mail. I don't have a computer!
Elmore Leonard
#56. The personality and the ego scream, while the soul whispers.
Elmore Leonard
#57. Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.
Elmore Leonard
#58. There are 500 million people on Facebook, but what are they saying to each other? Not much.
Elmore Leonard
#59. It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.
Elmore Leonard
#60. I thought I explained it to you. Boyd and I dug coal together.
Elmore Leonard
#61. He watched the eternity of the sky. The dark was restful, but the vastness was cold and made you draw something close to you.
Elmore Leonard
#63. The truth is that the writers who most influenced me weren't people categorized as crime writers. I'd say I learned more from John O'Hara, who isn't much read today but whose short stories I really admired, and Hemingway, who I think has lasted pretty good.
Elmore Leonard
#64. To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing.
Elmore Leonard
#65. All the information you need can be given in dialogue.
Elmore Leonard
#66. My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.
Elmore Leonard
#67. Boyd looked at him now like he was trying to decide something in his mind.
"You'd shoot me, you get the chance?"
"You make me pull," Raylan said, "I'll put you down.
Elmore Leonard
#68. My characters have to talk, or they're out. They audition in early scenes. If they can't talk, they're given less to do, or thrown out.
Elmore Leonard
#69. I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.
Elmore Leonard
#70. 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
#71. 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
#72. Do you want me to tell you what I give a shit about at age sixty-five', Cullen said, 'and what I don't give a shit about?'
(page 262)
Elmore Leonard
#73. Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write.
Elmore Leonard
#74. Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'
Elmore Leonard
#75. What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.
Elmore Leonard
#76. After 58 years you'd think writing would get easier. It doesn't. If you're lucky, you become harder to please. That's all right, it's still a pleasure.
Elmore Leonard
#77. I don't want to write any more screenplays, I'll tell you that right now. It's a waste of time. You've got too many people who think they have the answer to a good screenplay and they don't. No one knows.
Elmore Leonard
#78. Writing on the beach is not what it's cracked up to be. The sand blows, and you perspire, and the page gets all blotty and messed up, so I don't do that anymore.
Elmore Leonard
#79. There's something happening here, I know it. It's right in front of my face, but I just can't see it.
Elmore Leonard
#80. I don't think writers compete, I think they're all doing separate things in their own style.
Elmore Leonard
#81. The bad guys are the fun guys. The only people I have trouble with are the so-called normal types. Their language isn't very colorful, and they don't talk with any certain sound.
Elmore Leonard
#82. I always felt, you don't have a good time doin crime, you may as well find a job.
Elmore Leonard
#83. I don't have any of the modern electronics at all. I know the Internet would be a distraction. I would see things that interested me and never get back to writing.
Elmore Leonard
#84. Don't interrupt a man when he's giving himself hell.
Elmore Leonard
#85. I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
Elmore Leonard
#86. I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.
Elmore Leonard
#87. It took me 20 years to buy an electric typewriter, because I was afraid it would be too sensitive. I like to bang the keys. I'm doing action stories, so that's the way I like to do it.
Elmore Leonard
#88. Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay.
Elmore Leonard
#89. I got halfway through 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' I don't get it at all. What's the big thrill? It's boring.
Elmore Leonard
#90. Don't worry about what your mother thinks of your language.
Elmore Leonard
#91. I have fun writing. I don't make it a chore. I don't have to struggle with it.
Elmore Leonard
#92. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
Elmore Leonard
#93. Fate was working its ass off when it got us all together.
Elmore Leonard
#94. Psychopaths ... people who know the differences between right and wrong, but don't give a shit. That's what most of my characters are like.
Elmore Leonard
#95. I've learned if you're ever angry enough to hit somebody, don't do it. Cool down and get yourself a pistol.
Elmore Leonard
#96. 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
#97. If you're going to spend your life standing on principle, you want to be sure everyone understands what the principle is.
Elmore Leonard
#98. I'm not going to write for posterity. I'm going to write to make a buck.
Elmore Leonard
#99. All over the world ... the past was being wiped out by condominiums.
Elmore Leonard
#100. If I just sit here, what am I going to do? I don't have a trade. I don't teach or anything. I just love to make up characters and gradually build a story around them.
Elmore Leonard
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