American - Novelist | October 11, 1925 - August 20, 2013
I get letters. I get several a week, I think. A lot of people want a picture, a lot of people just want an autograph.
Elmore Leonard
PeopleThinkPictureWeekWantGet
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.
PeopleMeWritingSayingReading
I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I try to write, if I catch myself trying to write, I'll fall right on my face. I'll see it. If I see in the prose that I'm - 'Boy, look at me writing,' I rewrite it. I rewrite it because I don't, because I think it's distracting.
WorkMyselfMeWritingFaceThink
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.
WritingYouWriteNeedLineOut
Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.
ThinkWriteMarkPassLikeEven
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.
GirlBoringTattooDragonBigGet
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.
GoodTodayTruthPeopleMeThink
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.
PeopleMeTalkingYouSayTalk
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.
SnowWeatherBookIceYouWant
I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words.
GoodWordsShortBecauseStillHe
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.
LoveStoryTeachBuildUpAnything
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.'
FunMeWritingYouSayWant
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