Quotes About Alan Furst

I spend my life writing fiction, so reading fiction isn't much of an escape. That's not always true, but I don't read much contemporary fiction.

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

What I discovered is I don't like to repeat lead characters because one of the most pleasurable things in a book to me is learning about the lead.

In crime fiction, I cut my teeth on early Robert Parker, Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, and Alan Furst. I always loved the writing of Hemingway and Faulkner. Cormac McCarthy's 'Border Trilogy' has been a huge influence; I think I read those novels four times.

I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.

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

I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like... Gene Hackman.

'The Levanter' features some of the strongest action scenes to be found in Ambler - who can, in some of his fiction, stay in one place for a whole novel.