Alan Furst Quotes

I'm often called obsessive, but I don't think I am any more than anyone else.

When I'm working, I'm insufferable because I get stuck with myself, and suddenly I become obsessive, thinking about how to make something better.

I'm never satisfied, man. I'm Virgo. We overanalyze and we're never satisfied. So I'm gonna keep going 'til the wheels fall off.

I'm pretty critical of myself as far as reaching some sort of perfect bull's-eye or target that I'm aiming for.

I remember when I wanted every pitch to be a strike.

I've always been that person: If it gets into my head, I've got to do it until I get it perfect - a perfectionist's attitude.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

I'm a perfectionist - I could rewrite forever.

I'm convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

I'm the worst employer I could wish for because I push myself hard.

I am quite obsessive by nature.

I live, I live, with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. The years pass and one has only one life. If one has a thing at all one must do it and keep on and on and on trying to do it better.

If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough.

My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.

No matter how impossible this war, I shall fight to win. Whatever I have to do, I will do.

I have a tendency sometimes to get too logical with what I'm writing, just because I want it to be kind of perfect.

I'm a perfectionist. I'm very critical, especially artistically.

When I'm writing, I'm locking myself in a room. I'm the worst critic in the world. I write something and then I beat myself up. I'm like "Vin, you're retarded, that makes no sense."

I'm a perfectionist, to the point of insanity.

I quarreled with every word, every phrase and expression, every image and letter as if they were the last I was ever going to write. I wrote and rewrote every line as if my life depended on it, and then rewrote it again.

It really is appallingly difficult to do something which is complete in every respect, and I think most people are content with mere approximations. Well, my dear friend, I intend to battle on, scrape off and start again.

As an artist, you're never happy with anything you do. It's part of the process.

I have no pride about anything I have done. It's just not the way I think about things. I do the work, always, as hard as I can, to the point of pain, injury, exhaustion, if that is what it takes. Once I am done, I move on.

I've spent so long on some paintings that I no longer know what to think of them, and I am definitely getting harder to please; nothing satisfies me.