Alan Furst Quotes

25 quotes in 300 categories

• The printing presses of the state treasuries cranked out reams of paper currency- showing wise kinds and blissful martyrs- while bankers wept and peasants starved.
• Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they…
• And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's armies in Albania, on the Greek frontier, one wasn't sure what came next. So,…
• You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.
• Good people don't spend their time being good. Good people want to spend their time mowing the lawn and playing with the dog. But bad…
• I don't inflict horrors on readers.
• I invented the historical spy novel.
• I don't really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.
• I grew up reading genre writers, and to the degree that Eric Ambler and Graham Greene are genre writers, I'm a genre writer.
• I read very little contemporary anything.
• I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated.
• I'm not really a mass market writer.
• If you can live in Paris, maybe you should.
• If you're a writer, you're always working.
• My novels are about the European reality, not about chases. You want chases, get somebody else's books.
• The best Paris I know now is in my head.
• Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended,
• I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.
• Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.
• You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.

Browse Alan Furst Quotes by Category