Elmore Leonard quote: "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."

There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or o...
ELMORE LEONARD

Psychopaths... people who know the differences between right and wrong, but don't give a shit. That'...
ELMORE LEONARD

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

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all ...
ELMORE LEONARD

Writing on the beach is not what it's cracked up to be. The sand blows, and you perspire, and th...
ELMORE LEONARD

The truth is that the writers who most influenced me weren't people categorized as crime writers...
ELMORE LEONARD

There were a lot of terms you had to learn, as opposed to the shylock business where all you had to ...
ELMORE LEONARD

Never open a book with weather. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ...
ELMORE LEONARD

The bad guys are the fun guys. The only people I have trouble with are the so-called normal types. T...
ELMORE LEONARD

I once saw Dizzy Gillespie at a live show, and it made me want to go home immediately and start writ...
ELMORE LEONARD

I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I...
ELMORE LEONARD

I got halfway through 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' I don't get it at all. What'...
ELMORE LEONARD

When you are developing your style, you avoid weaknesses. I am not good at describing things, so I s...
ELMORE LEONARD

I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
ELMORE LEONARD

When I get an idea for a book, something appeals to me, it's usually a character. I'll see a...
ELMORE LEONARD

I would say just start writing. You've got to write every day. Copy someone that you like if you...
ELMORE LEONARD

The Ice Harvest
ELMORE LEONARD

The movie, when I saw it in New York, I said, 'This is the second-worst movie ever made,' ... And th...
ELMORE LEONARD

That was the book,
ELMORE LEONARD

Comfort to the Enemy.
ELMORE LEONARD

Tell them I'm not old enough,
ELMORE LEONARD

[Of course,] Pagan Babies ... Detroit, for some reason, is not big on good Italian restaurants.
ELMORE LEONARD

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
ELMORE LEONARD

I leave out the parts that people skip.
ELMORE LEONARD

Leave out the parts everyone skips.
ELMORE LEONARD

I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There ...
ELMORE LEONARD

The shots left a hard ringing sound within the closeness of the brick walls. Terry held the pistol a...
ELMORE LEONARD

I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has...
ELMORE LEONARD

Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're Margaret Atwood and can pai...
ELMORE LEONARD

It took me 20 years to buy an electric typewriter, because I was afraid it would be too sensitive. I...
ELMORE LEONARD

I don't want to write any more screenplays, I'll tell you that right now. It's a waste o...
ELMORE LEONARD

There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or o...
ELMORE LEONARD

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn...
ELMORE LEONARD

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

There are 500 million people on Facebook, but what are they saying to each other? Not much.
ELMORE LEONARD

I don't have any of the modern electronics at all. I know the Internet would be a distraction. I...
ELMORE LEONARD

I try to leave out the parts readers skip.
ELMORE LEONARD

A friend of mine who is in the publishing business knew I was writing a book, and he said, 'Have...
ELMORE LEONARD

I do this a lot with names. I'll start with a name, and then for some reason he won't talk m...
ELMORE LEONARD

I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incen...
ELMORE LEONARD

I used to be able to write five pages a day, every day, no problem. Now a good day is five or four p...
ELMORE LEONARD

I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: the...
ELMORE LEONARD

Sing me a love song in a slow, southern drawl to the tune of sunny days...
KELLIE ELMORE

That dip in the road- that sends your belly to your throat... that's how it feels when you kiss me.
KELLIE ELMORE

Winter is much like unrequited love; cold and merciless.
KELLIE ELMORE

...what happens when you return
and find nothing
but a hollowed shell,
shingles and f...
KELLIE ELMORE

(They) wanted it to be based not only on brotherhood, which every fraternity is based on, but based ...
ZAC ELMORE

Maybe Heaven will be a library. Then I will be able to finish my to-read list.
KELLIE ELMORE

I love how summer just wraps it’s arms around you like a warm blanket.
KELLIE ELMORE

We haven't seen the win column in a while. I was disappointed with our mental approach for this game...
RONNIE ELMORE

If we change our thoughts from 'it's too late' to, 'there's still hope', we might see some change in...
KELLIE ELMORE

Sometimes the only way to ever find yourself is to get completely lost.
KELLIE ELMORE

This area is some three hundred feet long, but it's very narrow, so we'll have to take a look at how...
WALTER ELMORE

I don't want someone to believe my lies, I need someone to accept my truths.
KELLIE ELMORE

Resting on the roots of this old oak I lean back against his knotted trunk, shine my granny smith on...
KELLIE ELMORE

The prices have gone down because the prices we purchase natural gas have gone down. There also has ...
ELMORE LOCKLEY

It's the same thing that's been going on since October.
ELMORE LOCKLEY

We want people to keep in touch with us if they're having problems. We can put people on the budget ...
ELMORE LOCKLEY

Once again, these prices reflect what is going on in the marketplace -- not just here, but it's a tr...
ELMORE LOCKLEY

Our ideals and principles applied to so many people. Many people felt so strongly about the principl...
ZAC ELMORE

Long after the cameras are gone and the headlines change, there will still be people in Purcell who ...
DUANE ELMORE

Maybe heaven needed another rose to add to its bouquet. It only took her 10 years to earn her wings.
DUANE ELMORE

From where it came and to where it goes, I wish I knew, like the river knows.
KELLIE ELMORE

I have yet to be completely submerged in reality, for drowning in the sky.
KELLIE ELMORE

It was history-making at the time. It was one of the greatest games. The combination of the extended...
LEN ELMORE

One of the reasons I was chosen was because I was a person of color. People wondered if I could spea...
LEN ELMORE

There was a Rhodes Scholar on my team, Tom McMillan. My mom had a chance to go to college, but she c...
LEN ELMORE

That pair is in very elite company. I think we've seen more gifted inside-outside tandems, but you'd...
LEN ELMORE

I say 'travel teams' because I firmly believe that a majority of these outlaw teams are not affiliat...
LEN ELMORE

When people say it's a Princeton offense, it's not. But there can be no denying there are Princeton ...
LEN ELMORE

There were 25 people in one apartment and 40 in another.
MIKE ELMORE

We're still in the picture. Our backs are to the wall, but if we go out and take care of business, w...
RONNIE ELMORE

No matter what, we have to keep moving forward, even if we have to crawl.
KELLIE ELMORE

...and should I die in her care, I would leave smiling because, I will linger in the hills beside he...
KELLIE ELMORE

It is noble to love another without caring to know who gave them breath.
CORNELIUS ELMORE ADDISON

I like being the underdog so they don't expect what's going to happen. It pushes me to work ...
KAWHI LEONARD

When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you.
LEONARD COHEN

At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challeng...
LEONARD COHEN

This is the most challenging activity that humans get into, which is love. You know, where we have t...
LEONARD COHEN

If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.
LEONARD COHEN

And I had not much of a voice. I didn't play that great guitar either.
LEONARD COHEN

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass d...
LEONARD COHEN

My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico García Lorca.
LEONARD COHEN

Success is survival.
LEONARD COHEN

We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. A...
LEONARD COHEN

We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're p...
LEONARD COHEN

When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That'...
LEONARD COHEN

There were times that I thought I was good looking.
LEONARD COHEN

I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd...
LEONARD COHEN

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to ...
LEONARD COHEN

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.
LEONARD COHEN

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
LEONARD COHEN

The convergence of the Rhone and Saone. Paul Bocuse. The birthplace of cinema. Chateauneuf-du-Pape j...
LEONARD SLATKIN

I'm not a builder of buildings, I'm a builder of collections.
LEONARD LAUDER

That which is alike will be called same. That which is not same is different.
LEONARD BLOOMFIELD

Professionally, I was at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and did lots of things there, and then I won...
LYDIA LEONARD

Is the universe 'elegant,' as Brian Greene tells us? Not as far as I can tell, not the usual...
LEONARD SUSSKIND

During one of my early seminars, there were a bunch of seminar junkies there.
LEONARD ORR

We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having t...
LEONARD COHEN

Obviously, I like guys that can defend other positions. Draymond Green is doing a great job with Gol...
KAWHI LEONARD

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everythi...
LEONARD COHEN

The book tour has been really interesting and very gratifying. I have not book toured before. I'...
LEONARD NIMOY

Non-human primates spend hours a day grooming each other. And with humans, touching is also importan...
LEONARD MLODINOW

My folks came to U.S. as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, w...
LEONARD NIMOY

When judging a product, we rarely have exhaustive scientific data to go by. As a result, if we are t...
LEONARD MLODINOW

If you kneel before God, you will stand before men.
LEONARD RAVENHILL

It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple
LEONARD COHEN

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in ever...
LEONARD COHEN

There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
LEONARD COHEN

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language h...
LEONARD COHEN

I know that there is an eye that watches all of us. There is a judgment that weighs everything we do...
LEONARD COHEN

Live Long and Prosper
LEONARD NIMOY

If I meet God, I hope she's female. I'm touched by the power of women. I'm married to a feminist. An...
LEONARD NIMOY

I'm only human, and I have no doubt Spock will outlive me by many years. I can only hope that, once ...
LEONARD NIMOY

I AM CONVINCED

I am convinced
That if all mankind
Could only gather together LEONARD NIMOY

The miracle is this - the more we share, the more we have.
LEONARD NIMOY

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.
LEONARD NIMOY

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and comm...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

The ultimate creative capacity of the brain may be, for all practical purposes, infinite.
GEORGE LEONARD

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person ...
LEONARD COHEN

Men give advice; God gives guidance.
LEONARD RAVENHILL

In terms of the game theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The be...
GEORGE LEONARD

Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers.
LEONARD BRANDWEIN

Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick.
GEORGE LEONARD

â€œThe church that is man-managed instead of God-governed is doomed to failure. A ministry that...
LEONARD RAVENHILL

It takes as much imagination to create debt as to create income.
LEONARD ORR

While we often huddle in groups of like-minded people, those with faith blaze a trail that threatens...
LEONARD RAVENHILL

The growth of affluence, the growth of education, has led to a shortage of morons.
LEONARD NEAL

The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, ...
GEORGE LEONARD

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
LEONARD COHEN

History tells us more than we want to know about what is wrong with man, and we can hardly turn a pa...
GEORGE LEONARD

If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twen...
STEW LEONARD

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does ...
LEONARD COHEN

I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jac...
LEONARD COHEN

The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of the soul...
LEONARD COHEN

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.
LEONARD COHEN

The ages of seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled th...
LEONARD COHEN

He lay beside her, an insomniac with visions of vastness. He thought of desert stretches so huge no ...
LEONARD COHEN

The difference between pornography and erotica is lighting.
GLORIA LEONARD

Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep ...
LEONARD COHEN

Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must ...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are ...
LEONARD COHEN

The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense t...
LEONARD COHEN

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.
LEONARD COHEN

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, a...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the co...
LEONARD COHEN

When the thunder rumbles,
Now the age of gold is dead.
When the dreams we've clung to
Tryin...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of th...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

A customer who complains is my best friend.
STEW LEONARD

Rule number one: The customer is always right. Rule number two: If the customer is wrong, see rule n...
STEVE LEONARD

The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense ...
LEONARD COHEN

I know nothing about sex, because I was always married.
GLORIA LEONARD

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of th...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Clarity affords focus.
THOMAS LEONARD

Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship ...
LEONARD COHEN

Touch seems to be such an important tool for enhancing social cooperation and affiliation that we ha...
LEONARD MLODINOW

My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregati...
LEONARD NIMOY

A lot of my research time is spent daydreaming - telling an imaginary admiring audience of laymen ho...
LEONARD SUSSKIND

It was a great feeling to be named an All-Star starter, to know that my hard work is paying off and ...
KAWHI LEONARD

Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands ou...
LEONARD COHEN

Well, first of all the Dominion Bureau of Statistics made a survey in the spring of 1970, which show...
LEONARD WOODCOCK

If tomorrow all of America were to become paternalistic, we would beat the Japanese every day of the...
LEONARD LAUDER

I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while. Also, the title singer was kindly accorded me...
LEONARD COHEN

It seems hopelessly improbable that any particular rules accidentally led to the miracle of intellig...
LEONARD SUSSKIND

'Subliminal' is about how we misinterpret our behavior because we're unaware of what our...
LEONARD MLODINOW

Boston was a great city to grow up in, and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very impo...
LEONARD NIMOY

Our success in this matter is important to all Americans. Whether you are in the forest land busines...
LEONARD BOSWELL

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly des...
LEONARD COHEN

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when t...
LEONARD COHEN

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
LEONARD COHEN

I like life on the road. It's a lot easier than civilian life. You kind of feel like you're ...
LEONARD COHEN

Music is the emotional life of most people.
LEONARD COHEN

It takes a long time to grow an old friend.
JOHN LEONARD

As the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks draws near we must ensure our nation is prepa...
LEONARD BOSWELL

This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments ...
LEONARD COHEN

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love.
LEONARD COHEN

The American Dream is one of success, home ownership, college education for one's children, and ...
LEONARD BOSWELL

Evolution is among the most well-established theories in the scientific community. To doubt it sound...
LEONARD MLODINOW

I never had the sense that there was an end: that there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot...
LEONARD COHEN

I think it's my adventure, my trip, my journey, and I guess my attitude is, let the chips fall w...
LEONARD NIMOY

I use my hands like a sculptor, to mold and shape the sound I want, to clarify.
LEONARD SLATKIN

Man - life in general - seems irrelevant to the workings of the universe: a mere smudge of water, gr...
LEONARD SUSSKIND

I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chantin...
LEONARD COHEN

Shakespeare wrote great plays that we're still watching all these years later. Charlie Chaplin m...
LEONARD MALTIN

The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control ...
LEONARD BOSWELL

Any great art work … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the ex...
LEONARD BERNSTEIN

My mind was always very cluttered, so I took great pains to simplify my environment, because if my e...
LEONARD COHEN

A Christmas Carol is such a fool-proof story you can't louse it up.
LEONARD MALTIN

On the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue sits the most famous concert hall in the world. No less a figur...
LEONARD SLATKIN

You can't serve up hearts like cherries jubilee.
LEONARD BAILEY

Some words having to do with the death of the people in the World Trade Center attack had been added...
LEONARD NIMOY

Journalists, especially English journalists, were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chor...
LEONARD COHEN

We're the underdogs and that's a good position to be in.
AMY LEONARD

They had a lot of confidence coming in and they came in on a streak. A lot of people didn't give us ...
AMY LEONARD

We couldn't really stop Clemens. Jessica was tough and you had two good teams playing and one had to...
AMY LEONARD

She spent a lot of her own time working individually on her skills, her footwork, getting to the bas...
AMY LEONARD

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.

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Elmore Leonard

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

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