Alan Furst

If I'm a genre writer, I'm at the edge. In the end, they do work like genre fiction. You have a hero, there's a love interest, there's always a chase, there's fighting of some kind. You don't have to do that in a novel. But you do in a genre novel.

I love the combination of the words 'spies' and 'Balkans.' It's like meat and potatoes.

I love the gray areas, but I like the gray areas as considered by bright, educated, courageous people.

Romantic love, or sex, is the only good thing in a life that is being lived in a dark way.

You have to have heart's passion to write a novel.

I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It's an incredibly romantic and beautiful place.

I had the experience of a monk copying documents, applying myself assiduously to my work. And I thought whatever happened, happened - this is just what I do in my life.

I could not spend the rest of my life sitting in Brazil writing down who called whom uncle and aunt.

When you move a border, suddenly life changes violently. I write about nationality.

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.

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.

A book must have moral purpose to be any good. Why, I don't know.