One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.
ALAN FURSTGood people want to spend their time mowing the lawn and playing with the dog. But bad people spend all their time being bad. It is all they think about.
More Alan Furst Quotes
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the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said
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On the Greek frontier, one wasn’t sure what came next. So, don’t trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.
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It takes me three months of research and nine months of work to produce a book.
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Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower – translated from a French saying
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I don’t just want my books to be about the ’30s and ’40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as ’40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.
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My novels are about the European reality, not about chases. You want chases, get somebody else’s books.
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Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus.
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I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language.
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Live today, for tomorrow we die.
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The printing presses of the state treasuries cranked out reams of paper currency.
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I expect them to have read books – there are a lot of people like that! That’s my audience.
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I write what I call ‘novels of consolation’ for people who are bright and sophisticated.
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I read very little contemporary anything.
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When I start writing, I do two pages a day; if I’m gonna do 320, that’s 160 days.
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Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don’t tell them.
ALAN FURST