Alan Furst Quotes

From the moment I wrote 'Leaf Storm' I realized I wanted to be a writer and that nobody could stop me and that the only thing left for me to do was to try to be the best writer in the world.

I wanted to write a novel. At 12 I knew, I am a writer. I said it to nobody.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

For several decades, I believed it was necessary to be extraordinary if you wanted to write, and since I wasn't, I gave up my ambition and settled down to a life of reading.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever - was write novels.

I had this dream to become a writer since I was a teenager.

I know that I'm probably far more pedestrian and less talented than many who dreamed of becoming writers but couldn't see the road so easily.

If you try to write a novel in L.A., you're a chump; everyone is speeding by, and you're driving a rickshaw.

My relatives used to laugh when I talked of being a writer.

Why do I put myself in a position to be cast aside or not considered as I would like to? Because I am a creative mind, because I still aspire to be one.

I had a vision of myself as a novelist because that was where I could be serious. I couldn't with music.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

I aspired from early on to write a novel, to be in the 'New Yorker,' to be on Broadway, and at least in a fleeting way, I got all those things.

I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them.

I have idea files of books that I want to write one of these days, stories I want to write one of these days, but I'll probably never get to them.

I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.

I'm one of those sad cases who've never wanted to be anything but a writer. I started writing my first novel when I was five years old. I have no idea what it was about, but I do remember spending considerable time trying to get the title right, though this had more to do with crayon colour than scansion.

When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it.

When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist.

From age 7 on, I wanted to be a writer.

I always thought of myself as a kind of literary bureaucrat. And that was never going to be enough for me.

After college, I was living in New York and wrote furiously, a huge novel that I knew was a failure. I hoped that the book would work, but to be honest, I think I knew it would never work, even as I was finishing it.

Dreamers become writers, and for me, being a published writer is a dream come true.

I actually wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to be an actor.

You don't say, I'm going to be a writer when I grow up - at least I didn't.