140 Quotes by Alan Furst

A certain type – he knew them all too well from years of experience as a detective, he knew how they acted, how they spoke, how their minds worked. These were people who would do anything to win at what they saw as the game of life, who had no allegiance to anyone or anything beyond themselves, who were gifted liars, who could scheme their way into almost anyone’s confidence, then betray them without hesitation.

I’m not really a mass market writer.

I write what I call ‘novels of consolation’ for people who are bright and sophisticated.

The sun?” Goldman said in an unguarded moment. “I hear they’ve shot it.

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 don’t really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.

But the world doesn’t run on logic, it runs on the seven deadly sins and the weather. – Alan Furst; Red Gold.

You can’t make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.

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.