Eduardo Rocha

“Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
― Elmore Leonard

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”
― John Keats

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
― Richard Feynmann

“When the American people feel they are doing all right for themselves they do not give much thought to the character of the man in the White House; they are satisfied to have a President ‘who merely fits the picture frame,’ as Warren Harding did.” However, “when adversity sets in and problems become too big for individual solution,” then, Sherwood argued, the people start looking anxiously for guidance, calling for a leader to “step out of the picture frame and assert himself as a vital, human need.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership: In Turbulent Times