I invented the historical spy novel.
ALAN FURSTI’m a genre writer.
More Alan Furst Quotes
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I don’t really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.
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I grew up reading genre writers, and to the degree that Eric Ambler and Graham Greene are genre writers.
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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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You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.
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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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One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.
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It takes me three months of research and nine months of work to produce a book.
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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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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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The best Paris I know now is in my head.
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Good 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.
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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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I’m basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.
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I’m a genre writer.
ALAN FURST






