Elmore Leonard Quotes

31 Sourced Quotes

If work was a good thing the rich would have it all and not let you do it.

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

Elmore Leonard
It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.

Elmore Leonard
My grandson, Max, who is an all state lacrosse player, once gave me some lacrosse advice: A limp pass is like a limp dick; it doesn't get the job done. I think the same can be said about limp writing.

Elmore Leonard
Well, the man don't just have to die, Foley. I mean, he could accidentally hurt himself falling down on something real hard, you know? Like a shiv, or my dick?

Elmore Leonard
Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.

Elmore Leonard
What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice.

Elmore Leonard
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Elmore Leonard
I always felt, you don't have a good time doin crime, you may as well find a job.

Elmore Leonard
I know a guy who walks into a bank with a little glass bottle. He tells everyone it's nitroglycerin. He scores some money off the teller, walks out. On his way out, the bottle breaks, he slips on it and knocks himself out. The "nitro" was Canola oil. I know more fucked-up bank robbers than ones who know what they're doing. I doubt if one in twenty could tell you where the dye pack is. Most bank robbers are fucking morons.

Elmore Leonard
I like homicide detectives. They wear hats. They wear hats so that other law-enforcement people will know they're homicide.

Elmore Leonard
It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.

Elmore Leonard
Alcohol never prevented me from writing. But when I quit — on January 24, 1977, at 9:30 a.m. — my fiction got better.

Elmore Leonard
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
Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"... he admonished gravely.

Elmore Leonard
I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.

Elmore Leonard
Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

Elmore Leonard
For a long time I've been walking down life's road with my two pals, Bad Luck and Bad Choices. Fortunately I'm a big believer in new beginnings, new friends, and running from my problems. So one day I decided to head for the island. Aloha, my name is Jack.

Elmore Leonard
Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.

Elmore Leonard
If an adverb became a character in one of my books, I'd have it shot. Immediately.

Elmore Leonard
Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with 'she asseverated,' and I had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

Elmore Leonard
You do appreciate sex more as you age. The simple fact is there will be fewer and fewer situations.

Elmore Leonard
When you meet somebody who bores you, you have to put up with him until he leaves. But when you meet a boring character, you turn the page.

Elmore Leonard
Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.

Elmore Leonard
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
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

Elmore Leonard
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