Alan Furst Quotes

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

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Quotes to Explore

• Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

  

  Isaac Asimov
  • Never
  • Doing
  • Morals

• Growing up, I was taught that a woman should lower her gaze so that men could never know her thoughts. The so-called modesty of Arab women is, in fact, a war tactic.

  

  Fatema Mernissi
  • Up
  • Men
  • Women

• To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year's Eve in San Francisco.

  

  Queen Latifah
  • Fun
  • Gay
  • Pride

• If you work in a public space, you have to be aware that no one is buying a ticket.

  

  Florentijn Hofman
  • Work
  • You
  • Space

• Wong Kar-wai and Ang Lee are two Asian directors I'm really fond of.

  

  Bai Ling
  • Two
  • Directors
  • Asian

• I am not a prisoner of conscious, but people try to make me one sometimes. It is both a gift and a curse. It's a high honour but can create limitations - I have to be fluid.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Gift
  • Conscious
  • Curse

• The field of the novel is very rich. If you're a composer, you're well aware of the history of composition, and you are trying to make your music part of that history. You're not ahistorical. In the same way, I think, if you write now, you are writing in the historical context of what the novel has been and what possibilities it has revealed.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Trying

• But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

  

  Carl Sagan
  • Fact
  • Brothers
  • Clown

• When you have birds you stare at them a lot and their eyes are recessed on their head. When they look at something they tilt their head in a quizzical expression.

  

  Ted Rall
  • Eyes
  • Look
  • Birds

• Whenever I've been well-known or hitting the press, I've always had to get my credit card out to prove I'm Damien Hirst.

  

  Damien Hirst
  • Always
  • Credit
  • Credit Card

• We're not trying to reinvent the wheel; for any environmental organization to claim sole responsibility for any kind of victory is insane, because everybody attacks these problems as a group.

  

  Ted Danson
  • Trying
  • Responsibility
  • Organization

• If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

  

  Carl Sagan
  • Nature
  • Wish
  • Universe

• I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

  

  Nathan Hale
  • Life
  • Country
  • Regret

• Just because I don't show six-pack abs doesn't mean that I don't have them.

  

  Abhishek Bachchan
  • Mean
  • Show
  • Just Because

• I played sports year around: basketball, soccer, softball and I ran track year around, from the time I was, like, six, seven.

  

  Gabrielle Union
  • Time
  • Sports
  • Basketball

• Color always vexed me because I would fight with the media I was using. I love coloring in Photoshop, and it's freed me to pursue ideas and techniques I wouldn't have otherwise attempted. Since I get to take an assignment from concept to final execution, I have more freedom in my idea-making processes.

  

  Adam Hughes
  • Love
  • Freedom
  • Color

• If you ever were bullied, you'll always remember that feeling.

  

  Odette Annable
  • Remember
  • Feeling
  • You

• History is replete with examples of moments in time when we talk about deficit reduction and try to advance on it around the world, that is, where it leads to job losses, not job creation.

  

  Tavis Smiley
  • Time
  • World
  • Job

• Overpopulated fiction can be so confusing that readers put the story down. Under-populated novels can seem claustrophobic or boring. You want the right number of characters for your particular work.

  

  Nancy Kress
  • Work
  • Want
  • Story

• I like the challenge of creating a world with only sentences.

  

  Dana Spiotta
  • World
  • Challenge
  • Creating

• Music is geometry in time.

  

  Arthur Honegger
  • Time
  • Music

• What inspires me is the desire to be on. The desire to be successful. The desire to reach people through my music and make a living off it and never have to do anything else. Being able to do music full time and travel the world and share this music with everybody. That's the dream.

  

  G-Eazy
  • People
  • Time
  • World

• There's a time where people were out holding posters in protest outside shows I was doing, and thankfully, we've moved past that. And a lot of country stations wouldn't play me. They were more conservative than I was.

  

  Kris Kristofferson
  • People
  • Time
  • Country

• 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
  • Past