Elmore Leonard Quotes

I find contentment in the craft of writing and fulfillment in self-expression.

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

I'm one of those writers who say, 'I've enjoy having written.'

Writing is a lot of fun for me; that's not to say it's easy, but I really do enjoy it.

In 'Dark Skye,' I rewrote every one of the Pandemonia scenes over and over before I was happy with them - hundreds of pages are now sitting in a folder called 'Cuttings,' never to be read. Ouch!

'One With You' was the hardest book I have ever written. I rewrote it three times.

I like making things. I enjoy putting words and images on a blank space. There should be joy in the writing itself because parts of it are so challenging and lonesome. I take great pleasure in reading, researching, and interviewing. I enjoy forming my sentences and revising them to make them clean.

I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.

I wouldn't do a project if it weren't a story I wanted to tell. That's rewarding in itself, as a writer, if you're working on a story that you enjoy telling.

I loved writing 'Two Brothers' more than anything else I have written. It's the first book I've written that I've always known I wanted to write. Having said that, it also kept me awake at nights.

Writing itself is a dream. There are days of self doubt and deadlines and wondering how you're going to pay the bills until you write that bestseller. But it's still the best job I've ever had. I've also been able to help a lot of people and even inspire a few and that feels great.

Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.

I just finished a novel, and I'm back kind of noodling on the screenplays. Screenplays are tough. I am making music, I'm just not sure what kind of music it is or where it's going.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

I was very fortunate that my first novel captivated the imaginations of so many readers who asked for a sequel. After that, one book led to another as I discovered other facets to my characters I wanted to investigate further.

Writing is never, ever easy but I wake up every morning grateful for the gift of being able to do this.

Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it's impossible; it's like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it's done. And by the time you get it in, it's done and you're sitting there reading it, and you realize the 12,000 things you didn't do. I mean, writing isn't fun. It's never been fun.

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

A novel is often a longer process in handling self-doubt.

As a writer of both novels and screenplays, I can say that screenwriting is a vastly rewarding creative life - if you fight hard enough to do it on your own terms. Whether I write books or not, my screenwriting life has been creatively rewarding and remains so.

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy that kind of process.

The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life.

For me, most writing consists of siphoning out useless pre-story matter, cutting and cutting and cutting, what seems to be endless rewriting, and what is entailed in all that is patience, and waiting, and false starts, and dead ends, and really, in a way, nerve.