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" I don't really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything. "
Alan Furst
History
Write
Use
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" Let me put it this way: I don't plan to retire. What would I do, become a brain surgeon? I mean, a brain surgeon can retire and write novels, but a novelist can't retire and do brain surgery - or at least he better not. "
Alan Furst
Way
Surgeon
Plan
" The best Paris I know now is in my head. "
Alan Furst
Now
Head
Paris
" Spy novels are traditionally about lone wolves, but how many people actually live like that? "
Alan Furst
Wolves
Like
How
" Moscow had this incredible, intense atmosphere of intrigue and darkness and secrecy. "
Alan Furst
Darkness
Secrecy
Incredible
" I just became what I call an 'anti-fascist novelist.' There is no word that covers both the fascists and the Communists, which mean different things to people, but of course they're the same: they're tyranny states. "
Alan Furst
Same
Tyranny
Mean
" 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. "
Alan Furst
Censorship
Forget
Serious
" Good people don't spend their time being good. 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. "
Alan Furst
Time
People
Good
" If you read the history of the national Socialist party, they're all people who felt like life should have been better to them. They're disappointed, vengeful, angry. "
Alan Furst
Angry
History
People
" Venice has always fascinated me. Every country in Europe then was run by kings and the Vatican except Venice, which was basically run by councils. I've always wondered why. "
Alan Furst
Country
Always
Kings
" I invented the historical spy novel. "
Alan Furst
Novel
Historical
Invented
" 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. "
Alan Furst
Want
Books
Conservative
" I grew up reading genre writers, and to the degree that Eric Ambler and Graham Greene are genre writers, I'm a genre writer. "
Alan Furst
Eric
Genre
Reading
" Seattle's support system got me through those early, difficult years. It was a very funky, very friendly, very relaxed place that had it all for a writer. "
Alan Furst
Seattle
Support
Me
" I read very little contemporary anything. "
Alan Furst
Little
Contemporary
Anything
" You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic. "
Alan Furst
Heroic
You
Situations
" I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It's an incredibly romantic and beautiful place. "
Alan Furst
Romantic
Beautiful
Love
" When you move a border, suddenly life changes violently. I write about nationality. "
Alan Furst
You
Move
Life Changes
" My novels are about the European reality, not about chases. You want chases, get somebody else's books. "
Alan Furst
Reality
You
Books
" I was raised on John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series. Something about this genre - hard-boiled-private-eye-with-heart-of-gold - never failed to take me away from whatever difficulties haunted my daily world to a wonderful land where I was no more than an enthralled spectator. "
Alan Furst
Me
Land
World
" I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript. "
Alan Furst
Wrote
Books
Five
" I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer. "
Alan Furst
West
Jewish
Writer
" If you can live in Paris, maybe you should. "
Alan Furst
Should
You
Live
" People know accuracy when they read it; they can feel it. "
Alan Furst
Feel
People
Know
" You write a lot of books; you hope you get better. "
Alan Furst
Get
Better
Write