Elmore Leonard Quotes

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

There is less in this than meets the eye.

Weasel Words

Things are not always as they seem.

You never know what's really happening behind closed doors. Everything isn't always what it seems.

The English are a nation of consummate cant.

Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people.

Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.

Everything was so designed by Hannibal to break down Will in the first season, until Will's sanity became questionable. It's so much easier to believe that somebody losing their mind is capable of terrible things than it is to consider Frasier Crane, a charming, fun doctor who invites you to dinner. If you put those two in a police lineup, you're going to pick the guy who's melting down.

If it looks like a Dwarf, and it smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf or a latrine wearing dungerees.

Things don't always look as they seem.

The mystery story is two stories in one: the story of what happened and the story of what appeared to happen.

Appearances are deceptive.

It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.

Neither awake nor in a dark dream are perilous blades just as they seem.

The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.

I'm from out of town," he said breezily. This was true. He'd never been within a hundred light-years of the place.

You should tell the truth as often as you can, but in such a way as people don't believe you or think that you're being funny.

Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.

It was often this way, life consisted of a series of false beginnings, bluff declarations of arrival to destinations not even glimpsed.

In all aspects of life, we take on a part and an appearance to seem to be what we wish to be--and thus the world is merely composed of actors.

He that first cries out stop thief, is often he that has stolen the treasure.

There always comes a point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive. This point is reached when the audience to which the lies are addressed is forced to disregard altogether the distinguishing line between truth and falsehood in order to be able to survive.

If only Uncle Monty knew what we know," Violet said, "and Stephano knew that he knew what we know. But Uncle Monty doesn't know what we know, and Stephano knows that he doesn't know what we know." "I know," Klause said. "I know you know," Violet said