Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don’t tell them.
ALAN FURSTOnce you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don’t tell them.
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.
ALAN FURSTthe fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said
ALAN FURSTMy novels are about the European reality, not about chases. You want chases, get somebody else’s books.
ALAN FURSTI invented the historical spy novel.
ALAN FURSTI expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language.
ALAN FURSTWhen I start writing, I do two pages a day; if I’m gonna do 320, that’s 160 days.
ALAN FURSTI don’t inflict horrors on readers.
ALAN FURSTAnd, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini’s armies in Albania.
ALAN FURSTOne is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.
ALAN FURSTI grew up reading genre writers, and to the degree that Eric Ambler and Graham Greene are genre writers.
ALAN FURSTThe best Paris I know now is in my head.
ALAN FURSTI’m not really a mass market writer.
ALAN FURSTI’m a genre writer.
ALAN FURSTOn the Greek frontier, one wasn’t sure what came next. So, don’t trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.
ALAN FURSTPoliticians were like talking dogs in a circus.
ALAN FURST