I invented the historical spy novel.
ALAN FURSTIf you’re a writer, you’re always working.
More Alan Furst Quotes
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I write what I call ‘novels of consolation’ for people who are bright and sophisticated.
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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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Good people don’t spend their time being good.
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One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.
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The printing presses of the state treasuries cranked out reams of paper currency.
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Live today, for tomorrow we die.
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I have a very serious censorship office inside my head; it censors things that I could tell you that you would never forget, and I don’t want to be the person to stick that in your brain.
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You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.
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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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I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language.
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I read very little contemporary anything.
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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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And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini’s armies in Albania.
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I don’t inflict horrors on readers.
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I don’t really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.
ALAN FURST