Top 100 Harlan Coben Quotes
#1. The grease from the awful lunch buffet took to the air, becoming more a skin coating than a smell.
Harlan Coben
#2. Being a parent is not for the faint of heart. I may joke about knowing fear, but the fact is, the first time I ever knew real fear was the day Charlotte, my first child, was born. Suddenly there is someone in the world you care about more than anything.
Harlan Coben
#3. We all play God every day. When a woman buys a new pair of expensive shoes, she could have spent that same money feeding someone who was starving. In a sense, those shoes mean more to her than a life. We all kill to make our lives more comfortable. We don't put it in those terms. But we do.
Harlan Coben
#4. Some men carry torches for old loves, and then some guys - not many, but some - get completely consumed by the torch's flames. It makes them nothing but long-term trouble for the follow-ups.
Harlan Coben
#5. Dreams never die. Sometimes you think they are dead, but they are just hibernating lie some old bear. And, if the dream has been hibernating for a long time, that bear is going to wake up grumpy and hungry
Harlan Coben
#6. The preparation for building a series of thrillers based on a single character is kind of like the preparation for becoming a parent: The best part is the idea - wink, wink.
Harlan Coben
#7. Death sucks. Death sucks, mostly because it forces those who stay behind to survive. Death isn't merciful enough to take you too. Instead, death constantly jams down your throat the awful lesson that life does indeed go on, no matter what.
Harlan Coben
#8. Manhattan scene - you are surrounded and yet you find solace; you find isolation in the tornado of people.
Harlan Coben
#9. But, alas, that was crap. She'd been had by a con man - simple as that. His modesty had been a way to cover up his true self. Call it instinct or women's intuition or going with your gut - whenever Wendy had done that, she had been wrong. "I
Harlan Coben
#10. By the time Myron was forced to return, their clients were scattering into the night like kitchen help during an immigration bust.
Harlan Coben
#11. He checked his watch. "One more drink," Win said. "And then I will go in the other room because - oh, you'll love this - Mee so horny." I
Harlan Coben
#12. I'm 48 years old, not a kid anymore by any definition, but here is a universal truth that every adult at some point will realize: We are all always 17 years old, waiting for our lives to begin.
Harlan Coben
#13. Jared was her son and the "co-general manager" of the Yankees - co meaning shares the title with someone who knows what he's doing because he got the job through nepotism.
Harlan Coben
#14. Maybe the answer isn't in another job," Wendy said. "Maybe the answer is in finding new ways to define manhood.
Harlan Coben
#15. That's what a good crime novelist - any good novelist - should do with you: play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight.
Harlan Coben
#16. Part of the human condition is that we all think that we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have our own dreams and hopes and wants and lust and heartaches. We all have our own brand of crazy
Harlan Coben
#17. Violence doesn't solve anything. Win would make a face when I said that, but the truth was, whenever I resorted to violence, it never just ended there. Violence ripples and reverberates. It echoes and really never seems to go silent.
Harlan Coben
#18. He truly believed that no one could love him, and no matter who you are, that hurts. It made you insecure. It made you want to hide and build fences
Harlan Coben
#19. He stared at Ryan and felt that overwhelming feeling he sometimes got when he looked at his boys - part pure joy, part fear of what could happen to them in this cruel world, part wishes and hopes, all blended together in the only thing in this entire planet that felt completely pure.
Harlan Coben
#20. In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.
Harlan Coben
#21. Most of the blood - nearly all of it, really - belonged to the victim, Rick Collins," Berleand said. His voice was measured now, as if he were trying to wade his way through whatever he was about to tell us. "That's hardly a surprise." We
Harlan Coben
#22. In most relationships, one partner has more control than the other. It was just the natural order of things. Perfect balance was a hard thing to find.
Harlan Coben
#23. Grief is devastating, all-consuming. But grief merely visits friends, even the closest. It stays much longer, probably forever, with the family, but that was probably how it should be.
Harlan Coben
#24. His world was wobbly but back on the axis.
Harlan Coben
#25. Shauna stalks into a room as though it offends her. She was a plus-size model, one of the few known by one name. Shauna. Like Cher or Fabio. She stood six one and weighed one hundred ninety pounds. She was, as you might expect, a head-turner, and all heads in the waiting room obliged. Shauna
Harlan Coben
#26. When Myron was ten years old, his father had taken him and his younger brother, Brad, to a game. Brad was five at the time. Dad had secured
Harlan Coben
#27. Some things we pack away, stick in the back of the closet, never expect to see again - but we can't quite make ourselves discard them. Like
Harlan Coben
#28. Would it be too hackneyed to wonder where it all went so wrong? Kitty's
Harlan Coben
#29. It was more about understanding that you could give it your all, give yourself the best chances, but control is an illusion.
Harlan Coben
#30. It was also lazy parenting, he thought. Teach them to do the right thing because it's the right thing - not because Mom and Dad are looking over your shoulder.
Harlan Coben
#31. Replicas never have the ghosts. They're bodies without souls.
Harlan Coben
#32. Win. He was often described in the society pages as an "international playboy," and she guessed that fit. He was blue-blooded old money, very old money, the kind of old money that disembarked from the Mayflower and immediately called for a caddy and a tee time.
Harlan Coben
#33. I said everyone looks happy. That was kinda my point. If you judge the world by Facebook, you wonder why so many people take Prozac.
Harlan Coben
#34. Some people, no matter how easy the path they are given on the walk of life, will find a way to mess it all up. Ray Levine was one of those people.
Harlan Coben
#35. I don't remember how big the balloons were. I was a kid then. Everything looks bigger when you're a kid.
Harlan Coben
#36. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued.
Harlan Coben
#37. It was true what they said: The older you become, the more you are like your parents. Soon he'd be telling a kid not to stick his elbow out the car window or he'd lose it.
Harlan Coben
#38. Kimberly Green had a major conniption. "Are you insane?" They
Harlan Coben
#39. The house had the stale smell of a grandparent. When you're a kid, the smell gives you the creeps; when you're an adult, you want to bottle it and let it out with a cup of cocoa on a bad day.
Harlan Coben
#40. When we stepped out of the car, I heard the ghosts. Lots of them here, too many, swirling and battling for my attention. My father's won out.
Harlan Coben
#41. She looks really happy."
"Everyone looks happy on Facebook."
"I know, right? What's up with that?
Harlan Coben
#42. The cardinal rule: You never have to take back words you don't say.
Harlan Coben
#43. You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.
Harlan Coben
#44. When I was seventeen, I worked as a counsellor at a co-ed sleep-away camp for eight weeks. I loved it but it could be harrowing - it was far too much responsibility for someone my age.
Harlan Coben
#45. Way to nail Cozone. Her cell phone buzzed as
Harlan Coben
#46. Michael was still talking with Cassandra. Man, she was something else. Talk about sizzle. A guy could get sunburn just standing near her. Make that sunstroke. And
Harlan Coben
#47. A GIANT SMILE spread across Pops's face when they entered the Blend bar. "What?" Wendy asked. "More cougars on those bar stools than on the Discovery Channel." The
Harlan Coben
#48. The world doesn't give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems.
Harlan Coben
#49. Watch out for people who belong in your past. Don't let 'em back in your life.
Harlan Coben
#50. Most people understand on some level that there are a lot of surveillance cameras out there, but very few people really get it. There are forty million surveillance cameras in the United States alone and the number keeps growing. You never go through a day without being recorded.
Harlan Coben
#51. If you give desperation any wiggle room, it will toy with you.
Harlan Coben
#52. Win's phone rang. He picked it up and said, "Articulate. Okay, put it through." Two seconds later he handed the phone to Myron. "For me?" Myron asked. Win gave him flat eyes. "No," he said. "I'm handing you the phone because it's too heavy for me." Everyone's a wiseass.
Harlan Coben
#53. Myron sipped his coffee. Gourmet coffee. A year ago he never drank coffee. Then he started stopping into one of the new coffee bars that kept cropping up like bad movies on cable.
Harlan Coben
#55. Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher.
Harlan Coben
#56. If you want to experience love, then you have to be ready for pain. One doesn't come without the other. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have to worry about losing you. If you want laughter, expect tears.
Harlan Coben
#57. If I'm not writing well, I'm not happy. If I'm not spending enough time with my family, I'm not happy. If I'm not connecting to friends or if I don't work out enough ... You get the point. Everything has to be balanced. Nothing should be an extreme.
Harlan Coben
#58. Muse grabbed the envelope. "Everything in here?" Chamique frowned. "Oh, no, you did not just ask me that." Muse
Harlan Coben
#59. Some people held grudges; Esperanza clutched them and tied them around her waist and used cement and Krazy glue to hold them steady.
Harlan Coben
#60. Myron was playing Mr. Bureaucrat to the hilt; nothing made a person feel more impotent. There is no darker pit than the blank stare of a bureaucrat.
Harlan Coben
#61. "better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.
Harlan Coben
#62. There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.
Harlan Coben
#63. Life may not always fall into neat chapters, and you may not always get the satisfying ending you're looking for, but sometimes a good explanation is all the rewrite you need.
Harlan Coben
#64. The truth may be better than lies ... But it doesn't always set you free.
Harlan Coben
#65. But every home is its own island with its own secrets.
Harlan Coben
#66. I read Parker's Spenser series in college. When it comes to detective novels, 90 percent of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it.
Harlan Coben
#67. The gray has no chance against that smile. It vanishes in a wonderful haze of bright color.
Harlan Coben
#68. Route 95 in Connecticut and New York is basically a series of construction areas masquerading as an interstate highway.
Harlan Coben
#70. I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain.
Harlan Coben
#71. Ten-A-Fly took off his sunglasses as if they'd angered him. His scowl aimed for intimidation but seemed more in the neighborhood of constipation. "So
Harlan Coben
#72. There is the old catch-22 line that a mentally unstable person can't know, as per their illness, that they are unstable. But that was wrong. You can and do have the insight to see your own crazy.
Harlan Coben
#73. Those who had easy answers, be they on the right or the left, were always wrong. The world is complex. It is never one-size-fits-all.
Harlan Coben
#75. She wore a killer smile, absolutely devastating. It was a smile that could twist a man's heart. A man could fall in love just being on the receiving end of that smile. A man would want to see the smile every day and be the one who could make it appear. He would want it all to himself.
Harlan Coben
#76. My love for you is like diarrhea," Sunglasses said. "I just can't hold it in.
Harlan Coben
#78. For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do?It takes so much to hold on to hate - you lose your grip on what's important, you know?
Harlan Coben
#80. If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills.
Harlan Coben
#81. I actually had to close my eyes, rub them,
Harlan Coben
#82. I like to see the difference between good and evil as kind of like the foul line at a baseball game. It's very thin, it's made of something very flimsy like lime, and if you cross it, it really starts to blur where fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair.
Harlan Coben
#83. Casual affairs never interested him. Every girl he met was gauged as a potential life partner, a soul mate, an undying love, as though every relationship should be a Carpenters song.
Harlan Coben
#84. Secrets...were cancers. Secrets festered. Secrets ate away at your innards, leaving behind nothing but a flimsy husk.
Harlan Coben
#85. Liz Gorman, a fiery redhead, had been one of the founding members of the Raven Brigade.
Harlan Coben
#86. She felt something deeper and richer with Dave, something driven by years and commitment, but maybe that was just fancy talk. That sort of electricity - had she ever felt it with her husband? Was it fair to even compare or think such things? Were such thoughts alone a betrayal? You
Harlan Coben
#87. Myron nodded. "The hotel on Route 80? Maybe five miles from here?" "Right. My source doesn't know what it was for or what ended up on it. He just knows the work was for the Downing divorce. He also confirmed the obvious: this thing is usually done to catch a spouse in flagrante delicto." Myron
Harlan Coben
#88. Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers." She slapped my back. "Welcome to high school.
Harlan Coben
#89. I pretty much only wear Lilly Pulitzer ties because my best friend owns the company.
Harlan Coben
#90. Certain problems cannot be solved if you are constantly entertained and distracted.
Harlan Coben
#91. He looked maybe half an egg sandwich away from a coronary.
Harlan Coben
#92. Let me back up a little and tell you why I prefer writing to real life: You can rewrite. A novel, for example, can be cleaned up, altered, trimmed, improved. Life, on the other hand, is one big messy rough draft.
Harlan Coben
#93. I'd never had money growing up, and it's never been that important to me, except maybe to take our kids on a nice vacation or something like that.
Harlan Coben
#94. My house has too many distractions. There's the email. There's checking my Amazon ranking. I know I'm the only author who's ever done that, ever. There's the fax. Too many distractions. I like to go out and write.
Harlan Coben
#95. Perhaps the greatest lesson was also the simplest: Cherish and take care of what you value. Happiness is fragile. Appreciate every moment and do everything you can to protect it. The rest of life, in a sense, is background noise.
Harlan Coben
#96. Did tragedy cause fissures, open them wider
or did tragedy merely turn on the light so you could see the fissure that had always been there?
Harlan Coben
#97. We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it.
Harlan Coben
#98. Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
- T. S. Eliot
Harlan Coben
#99. I'm paraphrasing, but basically Sherlock warned that you should never theorize before you have the facts because then you twist the facts to suit the theory instead of twisting the theory to suit the facts.
Harlan Coben
#100. Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.
Harlan Coben
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