Elmore Leonard Quotes

My hope is that I hit it big with something, and then I'll have enough of a cushion to carve out time to write a book. That would be my passion project.

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

I don't care about money. I really don't care. I just want to do what I do.

I keep writing because it is deeply pleasurable to me.

I don't need the money, dear. I work for art.

Writing wasn't about making money. I wanted to find fulfillment in writing and telling stories, and that's what's driven me.

There are lots of things I could have done for the money, but I've made a great living doing the things I want to do.

Money is a good thing and it's obviously useful, but to work only for money or fame would never interest me.

I still get enormous pleasure and a sense of fulfillment out of writing a book that I'm proud of. I see myself as a bit like a jewel-maker who can sit back and admire his work.

I did 'Tumbleweeds' for fun. I did it because I loved it and I hardly even got paid.

I have never been motivated by money in my life. You can't make choices based on what the financial return might be.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.

I've never done work for money ever. If your choices are based on grosses and the film doesn't do well, what does that mean? It leaves you with nothing.

Writing has become my great joy - I simply love it.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I've done for 25 years. I don't need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

I never cared about money or fame, and I don't care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows.

I'd rather be useful than rich. It's more essential to feel you're doing something that's worth doing, rather than making a lot of money.

It's hard to imagine my life not writing. I love it.

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

Why do I write? From selfishness. Because this state of liquefied, complex concentration, however faintly and dimly I'm able to perceive it, is the greatest pleasure I know.

And, we put a lot more value, or at least I personally put a lot more value, on the creative values and creative challenges of something than the commercial necessities.

It's not about the money for me.

I do not just play for money.

I'd heard of writers who say they hate to write. Not me. I love to do it.

I hope and pray that I'll be one of those fortunate people who have many, many books to write. I don't begrudge writing. I love the whole thing!