Tim Baker > Tim's Quotes

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
― John Lennon

“There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be...”
― John Lennon

“One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.”
― John Lennon

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”
― John Lennon

“Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.”
― John Lennon

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

“Free speech is the right to shout 'theater' in a crowded fire.”
― Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book

“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 never has anything funny in his stories.”
― Elmore Leonard

“"Wonderful things can happen", Vincent said, "when you plant seeds of distrust in a garden of assholes."”
― Elmore Leonard, Glitz

“Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.”
― Elmore Leonard

“I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.”
― Elmore Leonard

“I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.”
― Elmore Leonard

“The one thing Leonard won't tolerate is fancy prose. As he states in his 10 Rules of Writing: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
― Elmore Leonard

“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

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”
― Elmore Leonard, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

“Psychopaths... people who know the differences between right and wrong, but don't give a shit. That's what most of my characters are like.”
― Elmore Leonard

“It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does.”
― Elmore Leonard, Freaky Deaky

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
― Socrates

“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo