Elmore Leonard Quotes

When I was a screenwriter, I was doing it for mercenary reasons.

I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell.

The career of a writer is comparable to that of a woman of easy virtue. You write first for pleasure, later for the pleasure of others and finally for money.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

If your purpose is to make money, you shouldn't get into writing.

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. I can't believe it when writers tell me 'I don't want to show my work to anybody'.

I was always told you're not going to make much money from writing. You can actually do it. Now I've built a really good, big house out of words.

Somebody's always getting me to come lecture to their writing class, and I don't talk about writing at all, I talk about the business of making a living at this racket.

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

When Puffy asked me to do the video, I said yes. Cuz it's all about the Benjamins!

Who will want to write if writing doesn't pay?

Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.

It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

As much as writing is an emotional experience, it is a business as well. Coming from a business background, I treat it as such.

There was a point I could have just churned out the spot and spin paintings for ever and laughed all the way to the bank.

Of course, I do everything for money.

My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!

I never earned a dollar that was not somehow through writing.

Why do you judge me as a musician, John? All I'm interested in is making money.

When I write, I make decent money doing it, but I don't wake up dreaming about writing.

Miley Cyrus is about making money. Amanda Palmer is about making art.

I don't teach writing classes anymore, and I'm really glad I don't, because I would feel very strange about telling people, 'Go out there and be a writer, and make a living from it.'

Of course I want to be a best seller because I'm in the business and I want to be read, but there is no money in the world that can compensate for writing badly.

I always tell people there's only one trick to writing: You have to write something that people are willing to pay money to read. It doesn't have to be very good, necessarily, but somebody, somewhere, has got to be willing to pay money for it.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.