Books Quote by Elmore Leonard

As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early 'forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.

— Ernest Hemingway

I read Nabakov for style, Mary Karr for heart and resonance of where I come from. She's from the same part of the world…

— Rodney Crowell

From the time I read my first Hemingway work, The Sun Also Rises, as a student at Soldan High School in St. Louis, I…

— A. E. Hotchner

Before I was reading science fiction, I read Hemingway. Farewell to Arms was my first adult novel that said not everything ends well. It…

— Robert Reed

I like simple writing. I'd rather read Hemingway than Burroughs.

— Yannis Philippakis

What's impossible not to notice, though - it's all around us - is the diminution of American prose: How pedestrian it has become. Pick…

— Cynthia Ozick

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He…

— Elmore Leonard

I would say just start writing. You've got to write every day. Copy someone that you like if you think that perhaps could become…

— Elmore Leonard

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,…

— Elmore Leonard

I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry…

— Kurt Vonnegut

I get stage fright with short stories. For me it feels like standup comedy: kill or die. I'm more confident when I begin a…

— Sefi Atta

Novels are more difficult simply because they are longer and require more juggling, but short stories are closer to perfection, if you can get…

— Colum McCann