Alan Furst Quotes

I am sure of this: that no one can write a book which children will like unless he write it for himself first.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

I wrote 'The Zombie Survival Guide' because I wanted to read it, and nobody else was writing it. All I've been doing with everything I've written is answering questions that I had.

After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.

Whenever I've been stuck on a project, it's always brought me solace to the return to books that moved me in the past. It's a nice way to get outside my own head; and it brings me back to one of the most important reasons I write at all: to bring some pleasure to readers, to make them think or feel.

I always write out of a need to read something, rather than a need to write something.

I thought I was a pretty good writer, but I didn't have anything to write about. I wanted to go out in the world, have some adventures and then write about them.

I spend a lot of time writing. I get inspiration from texts rather than images.

I write simply because I hear voices of people in my head who won't give me peace until I convey their stories to the rest of the world. Seriously. They've always been with me. While other girls played with dolls, and my brothers with Hot Wheels, I was busy traveling through space or traipsing through graveyards with my imaginary playmates.

My next book - each one while I'm working on it - dances in my mind and thrills me at every turn. If it didn't, why would I write it?

Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.

I never want kids to walk away after a school presentation and say, 'I met a writer today.' I want them to say, 'I am a writer.'

Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimov, I could write a paragraph about how each of these writers influenced me, my writing, and my thoughts, and do to this day.

As long as there's a strong theme that I can identify with, that's what makes me interested in writing.

Writing 'The Spirit' is really fun.

I have always thought of myself as a writer, only because I need things to direct, and I can't not write the things that I direct.

I'm a daydreamer - a purposeful one when I'm writing fiction.

I really started considering myself a writer when I was about seven or eight years old. I wrote stories from my dreams and kept them all in a notebook that I still have.

I loved writing the Spellman novels, but I never had any plan to only write in one genre.

I have notebooks all over the place. I write little stories for my cabaret.

I like making things. I enjoy putting words and images on a blank space. There should be joy in the writing itself because parts of it are so challenging and lonesome. I take great pleasure in reading, researching, and interviewing. I enjoy forming my sentences and revising them to make them clean.

When I was growing up, I didn't feel strong. I felt weak. I felt like a scared little kid. So I naturally turned to books to deal with that feeling, and I really turned to fantasy. That's really what influenced my decision to write a fantasy novel.

If you're mostly a writer - if your point of departure is writing something - which for a writer/director is sort of where you start, you're really influenced by the writers you love one way or another.

What I found so captivating about the idea of being a writer was having the ability to write down all these things I made up in my head so other people could see them.