Top 100 Elmore Quotes
#1. I can still remember my mum (a voracious, if not discriminating, reader - I have seen everything from the sublime to the ridiculous by her bed, from Ian Rankin and Elmore Leonard to Barbara Cartland and James Patterson) taking me to get my library card when I was four and not yet at school.
John Niven
#2. I admire writers such as Elmore Leonard who can nail a character in three or four lines of dialogue, so he doesn't need pages of back story or clumsy exposition.
Mark Billingham
#3. When you translate the American writers who are best with dialogue into German - someone like Elmore Leonard, or Tom Wolfe, who's also quite good with dialogue. It's very hard to translate them well.
Daniel Kehlmann
#4. Sociologists tell us that even the most introverted individual will influence ten thousand other people during his or her lifetime! This amazing statistic was shared with me by my associate Tim Elmore.
John C. Maxwell
#5. For pleasure, I'll read military sf, or Elmore Leonard capers, anything that's fast and fun. Otherwise, I mostly pick at books, without any clear focus.
Paolo Bacigalupi
#6. Elmore James only knew one lick, but you had the feeling that he meant it.
Frank Zappa
#7. Let it Ride channels Elmore Leonard at the height of his powers, with dialogue Quentin Tarantino would kill for.
Ken Bruen
#8. Like Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake and Robert B. Parker and oh so many others, I want to die with my boots on, facedown on my keyboard if possible, in the middle of a sentence.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
#9. I lost a boyfriend over Elmore James. You know that moment when you send mixtapes at fifteen? He sent me pop hits, and I sent him Elmore James, and I never heard from him again.
Imelda May
#10. Leave out the parts readers tend to skip. (Elmore Leonard)
First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money. (Moliere)
Jan Shapin
#11. If Elmore Leonard met Jim Thompson down a dark alley at midnight they might emerge a week later with thick beards, bloodshot eyes and the manuscript for THE BIG O.
Eoin Colfer
#12. I love Elmore Leonard. To me, True Romance is basically like an Elmore Leonard movie.
Quentin Tarantino
#13. Elmore Leonard famously said that a story is real life with the boring parts left out.
Lisa Cron
#14. I love the sound of Elmore James, the sound early guitarists like him got just by using minimal means.
M. Ward
#15. I'm a big fan of Elmore Leonard, and I've read Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre and so on. But I'd never read a crime novel that made me feel emotional at the end.
John Gordon Sinclair
#16. I went to a Catholic all-girls school, and we would play cassettes of music we liked, and when it was my turn, they would laugh at my choices. I would play Billie Holliday, Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf, but it was fine; if I had to listen to their choices, they had to listen to mine.
Imelda May
#17. Like Richard Price and the late, great Elmore Leonard, Matt Burgess is one of those cool, quick and funny writers who can turn a seemingly routine crime caper into something special.
Carl Hiaasen
#18. 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
#19. 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
#20. 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
#21. The happiest people I know live lives that revolve around serving others, not themselves.
Tim Elmore
#22. The train blows through town
delivering reality,
slapping my face and screaming,
"You are alone"
Rose colored memories drown,
taking their last breath.
Kellie Elmore
#25. Unexamined wallpaper is classroom practices and institutional policies that are so entrenched in school culture or a teacher's paradigm that their ability to affect student learning is never probed.
Richard Elmore
#26. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.
Elmore Leonard
#28. 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
#29. 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
#30. 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
#31. If we are ready to tear down the walls that confine us, break the cage that imprisons us, we will discover what our wings are for
Michael Elmore-Meegan
#32. 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
#33. A wife's faithful to her husband, subject to him. It's in the bible.
Elmore Leonard
#34. In the light of eternity, is it better to sell out and ride or stand up and walk?
Elmore Leonard
#35. Flexibility, negotiation, and compromise are at the heart of loving relationships.
Ronn Elmore
#36. Life is like a steering wheel, it only takes one small move to change your entire direction.
Kellie Elmore
#37. There were times my immaturity kept me from being all I wanted to be.
Len Elmore
#38. Maybe Heaven will be a library and then I might get to finish my 'to-read' list.
Kellie Elmore
#39. 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
#40. I used to be able to write five pages a day, every day, no problem. Now a good day is five or four pages, and that's from 9:30 A.M. until 6 P.M.
Elmore Leonard
#42. 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
#43. From where it came and to where it goes, I wish I knew, like the river knows.
Kellie Elmore
#44. 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
#45. I left advertising as fast as I could in 1961. And I haven't ever thought about going back.
Elmore Leonard
#46. 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
#47. 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
#49. Resting on the roots of this old oak I lean back against his knotted trunk, shine my granny smith on my sleeve And ponder the days ...
Kellie Elmore
#50. 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
#51. 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
#52. Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.
Elmore Leonard
#53. Watch me go. Watch me. Because you said i couldn't. Because you thought I wouldn't. Go on, cry now. Cry.
Kellie Elmore
#54. One of the reasons why I enjoy college basketball a little more is because of its team orientation as opposed to individual orientation.
Len Elmore
#55. "Wonderful things can happen", Vincent said, "when you plant seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes."
Elmore Leonard
#56. Sometimes you have to put yourself in other people's shoes to really understand the hardships of their souls.
Kellie Elmore
#57. I've always been taught that basketball is a team game and greater than the sum of its parts.
Len Elmore
#58. People ask me, 'Why are you still writing books?' Like I'm still only writing to make money and as soon as I have enough I'll quit and go fishing? I like to write books. It's the most satisfying thing I do.
Elmore Leonard
#59. If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.
Elmore Leonard
#60. You never know what somebody might tell you,' Chris said, 'when they think you're somebody else.
Elmore Leonard
#61. What happens when you return
and find nothing
but a hollowed shell,
shingles and floor,
walls and echoes
and the light that lead you here
has now burned out
and the ones who built it
have traveled afar
and you cant go to them,
no matter what shoes you wear.
Kellie Elmore
#62. 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
#63. There's nothing like work to take your mind off your worries.
Elmore Leonard
#64. I love how summer just wraps it's arms around you like a warm blanket.
Kellie Elmore
#65. I'm concerned that young people, far too often, abdicate their responsibilities of learning and adapting and give that over to people who may not always have their best interests at heart.
Len Elmore
#66. I don't want the reader to be aware of me as the writer.
Elmore Leonard
#67. 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
#68. 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
#69. My mother and father stressed education and always made sure we had a place to study and books to read.
Len Elmore
#70. 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
#71. I don't want someone to believe my lies, I need someone to accept my truths.
Kellie Elmore
#72. She wondered what he looked like with his hat off and wondered again if he knew he was funny.
Elmore Leonard
#73. 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
#74. 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
#75. I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.
Elmore Leonard
#76. 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
#77. Sometimes if you talk trash, you end up taking out the garbage.
Len Elmore
#78. Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.
Elmore Leonard
#79. Winter is much like unrequited love; cold and merciless.
Kellie Elmore
#80. Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.
Elmore Leonard
#81. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.
Elmore Leonard
#82. 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
#83. Home is anywhere you're willing to stay - anywhere you're willing to make change
Joel Saunders Elmore
#84. Don't just follow your dreams; chase them down, grab hold and don't let go.
Kellie Elmore
#85. When people ask me about my dialogue, I say, 'Don't you hear people talking?' That's all I do. I hear a certain type of individual, I decide this is what he should be, whatever it is, and then I hear him. Well, I don't hear anybody that I can't make talk.
Elmore Leonard
#86. 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
#87. I knew, despite playing in the NBA, that I would have to prepare for another career or vocation for when my playing days were over, in order to maintain relevancy. I didn't want to become known for what I used to do.
Len Elmore
#88. 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
#89. 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
#90. She said very quietly, "Mitch?" "What?" "There's somebody downstairs." "I know there is.
Elmore Leonard
#91. 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
#92. Puttin' on a cowboy hat & a pair of boots doesn't make you country; Like puttin' on a ball gown & glass heels won't make me Cinderella.
Kellie Elmore
#94. 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
#95. Maybe Heaven will be a library. Then I will be able to finish my to-read list.
Kellie Elmore
#96. Some of the best memories are made in flip flops.
Kellie Elmore
#97. Sometimes the only way to ever find yourself is to get completely lost.
Kellie Elmore
#98. 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
#99. I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writing.
Elmore Leonard
#100. 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
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