Quotes from Elmore Leonard

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

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

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.

Wonderful things can happen", Vincent said, "when you plant seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes."

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

Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.

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

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.

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.

Fate was working its ass off when it got us all together.

And she thought if you don't have the desire to fight or wait for something there's no reason for being on earth.

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

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.

I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.

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.

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.

You never know what somebody might tell you,' Chris said, 'when they think you're somebody else.

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

But when you begin with bullshit the conclusion you reach is still bullshit.

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

There's something happening here, I know it. It's right in front of my face, but I just can't see it.

all over the world...the past was being wiped out by condominiums.

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?