Alan Furst > Quotes

“Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying”
― Alan Furst, The Spies of Warsaw

“There's a French saying, ‘Où le Dieu a vous semé, il faut savoir fleurir.’ Let's see, ‘Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower'...”
― Alan Furst, The Spies of Warsaw

“One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.”
― Alan Furst, The World at Night

“Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said”
― Alan Furst, Dark Star

“Home at that moment was a starless night, a steady wind, not a human to be seen.”
― Alan Furst, Mission to Paris

“But the world doesn't run on logic, it runs on the seven deadly sins and the weather. - Alan Furst; Red Gold”
― Alan Furst

“And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's armies in Albania, on the Greek frontier, one wasn't sure what came next. So, don't trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.”
― Alan Furst, Spies of the Balkans

“This land, like so much of the French countryside, was a painting, but Mercier felt his heart touched with melancholy and realized, not for the first time, that beautiful places were hard on lonely people.”
― Alan Furst, The Spies of Warsaw

“Live today, for tomorrow we die.”
― Alan Furst, Night Soldiers

“The lawyer Thien, when Morath was ushered into his office by a junior member of the staff, turned out to be an ancient bag of bones held upright only by means of a stiff, iron-coloured suit.”
― Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows

“Earlier, during a lull in business, Morath had laid out the details of Kolovitzky’s letter and the two of them had discussed strategy, coming up with the plan that couldn’t go wrong and what to do once it did. In”
― Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows

“The printing presses of the state treasuries cranked out reams of paper currency- showing wise kinds and blissful martyrs- while bankers wept and peasants starved.”
― Alan Furst, Night Soldiers

“When you are done living for yourself, only then do you learn that living for others is the privilege,’ Renata”
― Alan Furst, Night Soldiers

“Before the war, most of the hospital nurses in the city had been nuns but they had fled to Franco-occupied territory and the wards were now staffed by the prostitutes of Madrid—their hair growing out black because the city’s supply of peroxide was needed as antiseptic for the wounded.”
― Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe

“It was dawn by the time the detective showed up; tired and weary. Tired because he’d been called from his bed before dawn, weary because he’d spent his life looking at the bad side of human nature and that wasn’t going to change.”
― Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe

“This work is, as I said, improvisation, so we use whoever’s around, if we can trust them.”
― Alan Furst, Mission to Paris

“Closed his eyes and reminded himself who he was, where he came from. Riders in the high grass, campfires on the plain. Idle dreams, he thought, romantic nonsense, but it was still there, somewhere, rattling around inside him. At least he liked to think it was. In his mind? No, in his heart. Bad science, but good metaphysics. And that, he thought, was pretty much who he'd thought he'd always been.”
― Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows

“When a diplomat says ‘yes’ he means ‘maybe.’ When a diplomat says ‘maybe’ he means ‘no.’ But if a diplomat says ‘no’ he’s no diplomat.”
― Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe

“Fischfang stared out the window, the sky gray with winter coming. “Then what you might be able to do,” he said, “is a Summer Night movie. You know what I mean—the perfect night of summer in the full moon. A certain group of people have gathered in a castle, a country house, a liner on the high seas. A night of love, the night of love. Just once, dreams come true.”
― Alan Furst, The World at Night

“This year, of course, being 1936, there would be no figs.”
― Alan Furst, Night Soldiers

“Jesus, the world’s a slaughterhouse. Really it is. If you’re weak they’re going to cut your throat—ask the Armenians, ask the Jews. The bad people want it their way, my friend. And how badly they want it is the study of a lifetime.”
― Alan Furst, The Polish Officer

“news—news which was withheld or slanted in Italy, where journalism had been defined, by law, as a supportive adjunct to national policy.”
― Alan Furst, The Foreign Correspondent

“When you're looking for somebody and you find yourself in contact with people you've never met, you are getting close.”
― Alan Furst, Red Gold

“Marie-Galante. A fancy name. Nobility? It wouldn’t shock him if she were. Or not. A slumflower, perhaps. No matter, she was stunning, glamorous. Exceptionally plucked, buffed and smoothed. She had come to his cabin, sable coat and bare feet, as she’d promised at dinner. A glance, a low purr of a voice in lovely French, just enough, as her husband, a Vichy diplomat, worked at conversation with the Bulgarian captain and his first officer. So, no surprise, a few minutes after midnight: three taps, pearlescent fingernail on iron door and, when it opened, an eloquent Bonsoir.”
― Alan Furst, Blood of Victory

“hands”
― Alan Furst, The Foreign Correspondent

“A moment comes, and if you wish to look at yourself as human, you must take some kind of action. Otherwise, you can read the newspapers and congratulate yourself on your good fortune.”
― Alan Furst, Dark Star

“Stavros, beads of sweat on his face, held his girlfriend tight and stomped around the dance floor, doing his very own version of the beguine.”
― Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe

“the golden hair moved slightly, then was still.”
― Alan Furst, Spies of the Balkans

“You did love me, Ilya. I wasn’t wrong about that, was I?” “With all my heart.” She smiled and closed her eyes. “Women like to hear those things. Always, I think. It always makes them happy, God only knows why.”
― Alan Furst, Blood of Victory

“Well, they’re trying to get rid of me, but you’re still hanging there. What will become of us, when the war is over?’ And the portrait says, ‘That’s easy, Adolf—they’ll get rid of me and hang you.’ ”
― Alan Furst, Dark Voyage