Harlan Coben Quotes

When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head.

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.

Well-meaning friends ' often the worst kind ' handed me the usual clich+!s, and so I feel in a pretty good position to warn you: Just offer your deepest condolences. Don't tell me I'm young. Don't tell me it'll get better. Don't tell me she's in a better place. Don't tell me it's part of some divine plan. Don't tell me that I was lucky to have known such a love. Every one of those platitudes pissed me off. They made me ' and this is going to sound uncharitable ' stare at the idiot and wonder why he or she still breathed while my Elizabeth rotted.

What I couldn't make sense of, what I couldn't figure out in any way, shape, or form, was why Lucy Cutting had found nothing in the neat-to-the-point-of-anal records on Natalie and Todd's nuptials. And why the hell had no one heard of the Creative Recharge retreat? I couldn't get that to mesh. So now what? I had come here in hopes of . . . of what? Of learning Todd's last name for one thing. That could end this pretty quickly. If not, perhaps someone here still kept in touch with Natalie. That could end this all pretty quickly too. "Promise

Sex is for anyone; the aftermath is for lovers.

War is never a meritocracy for the casualties.

Kids don't come with instructions. We all mess up. Raising a child is pure impromptu.

The missing girl - there had been unceasing news reports, always flashing to that achingly ordinary school portrait of the vanished teen, you know the one, with the rainbow-swirl background, the girl's hair too straight, her smile too self-conscious, then a quick cut to the worried parents on the front lawn, microphones surrounding them, Mom silently tearful, Dad reading a statement with quivering lip - that girl, that missing girl had just walked past Edna Skylar.

You want to put people in neat categories, make them monsters or angels, but it almost never works that way. You work in the gray and frankly that kinda sucks. The extremes are so much easier.

Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon.

The sun shone through the green of the trees. The sky was a blue only a deity could paint. Beauty always found refuge in the ugly. Truth be told, beauty couldn't really exist without the ugly. How can there be light if there is no dark? Gerard

Would it be too hackneyed to wonder where it all went so wrong? Kitty's

With everyone else, you put up this facade so you can hide the crud and make them like you. But with real friends, you show them the crud-and that makes them care. When we get rid of the facade, we connect more.

I like to go out and write. So I'll often go to a Starbucks or a local coffee bar, and I'll sit there and I'll write. I can write pretty much anywhere.

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.

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?

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

Myron remembered something his father once told him: People have an amazing capacity to mess up their own lives.

It's important to like what you're doing. Choosing a profession is the most important decision you'll ever make - more important even than choosing a spouse.

Death teaches you that. You would give anything, forgive anything, for just one more second. . . .

She had trouble simply enjoying and letting be. She liked to correct and make right.

It reminded him of the Sound of Music. Myron liked the ole Julie Andrews musical well enough. who didn't? but he always found one song particularly dumb. One of the classics, actually. My Favorite Things. The song made no sense. Ask a zillion people to list their absolute favorite things, and how many of them are going to list doorbells for crying out loud.
You know what, Milly, I love doorbells. To hell with strolling on a quiet beach, or reading a great book, or making love or seeing a broadway musical. Doorbells, Milly, doorbells really punch my ticket. Sometimes I just run up to people's houses and press their doorbells and, well, I think i am man enough to admit I shutter.

An old Croatian proverb Adam had learned in college applied here: The hunchback sees the hump of others - never his own.

The Newark train station is about as romantic as a pile of hippo dung with head lice.

Esperanza's side had so many colors, Crayola sent a scout.

Three days ago, I was a dedicated doctor sleepwalking through my own life. Since then, I had seen a ghost, gotten emails from the dead, had become a suspect in not one but two murders, was on the run from the law, had assaulted a police officer, and had enlisted the aid of a known dug dealer.

I blinked and the images were gone. But I remembered how the laugh and the howl and the splash would ripple and echo in the stillness of our lake, and I wondered if ripples and echoes like those ever fully die away, if somewhere in the woods my father's joyful yelps still bounced quietly off the trees. Silly thought, but there you go.

Terrific," Simon said. "The psychos are on my side.

We all have our demons. But men? They have them much worse. The world tells them that they are the leaders and great and macho and have to be big and brave and make a lot of money and lead these glamorous lives. But they don't, do they? Look at the men in this neighborhood. They all worked too many hours. They came home to noisy, demanding homes. Something was always broken they needed to fix. They were always behind on the house payments. Women, we get it. Life is about a certain kind of drudgery. We are taught not to hope or want too much. Men? They never get that.

As a soldier, you don't stand at attention because it looks nice. You stand at attention because, on some level, it either gives you strength or, just as important, makes you appear stronger to both your comrades and enemies.

Occam's Razor. My father had often repeated that one to me. Occam's Razor states the following: "Other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." Put more succinctly, the simplest answer was usually the best one. So

Fame is more addictive than crack. Adults who lose fame
one-hit wonders, for example
usually tailspin into depression, though they try to act like they're above it. They don't want to admit the truth. Their whole life is a lie, a desperate scramble for another dose of that most potent of drugs. Fame

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.

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

What about her?" Win shook his head. "God, Myron, you're such a sexist. And here she is now." Win looked toward the door. Myron did the same and immediately recognized the woman who'd entered. It was Brooke Baldwin, Win's cousin and, more to the point, mother of the still-missing Rhys. Myron hadn't seen Brooke in, what, five years, he surmised. A

We get mad at someone for cutting us off in traffic or for taking too long to order at Starbucks or for not responding exactly as we see fit, and we have no idea that behind their facade, they may be dealing with some industrial-strength shit. Their lives may be in pieces. They may be in the midst of incalculable tragedy and turmoil, and they may be hanging on to their sanity by a thread. But we don't care. We don't see. We just keep pushing.

Stanton closed the top drawer, opened the second one. "Maybe I'm new, maybe I'll get more jaded. But the law cleared this guy. Period, the end. If you don't like that, change the law. We in law enforcement need to be impartial referees. If the speed limit is fifty-five miles per hour, then you ticket a guy going fifty-six. If you think, nah, don't ticket until he's going sixty-five, then change the law to sixty-five. And it works the other way too. Following the rules, the judge freed Dan Mercer. If you don't like that, change the law. Don't bend the rules. Legally change them." Walker

I actually had to close my eyes, rub them,

With choice comes guilt. No escaping it.

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.

You bring your own weather to the picnic.

We stopped at a door that read GUIDANCE. I always found that term wonderfully vague. The dictionary definition of the word is "advice or information aimed at resolving a problem." In short, an attempt to help. But to us students, the word - this office - is far more frightening. It conjures up our college prospects, growing older, getting a real job - our future. Guidance seemed more like a term for cutting us loose. Spoon

I treat every student who walks through those doors the same because we are here to teach, if not political science, maybe a little something about critical thinking or even - gasp! - life. If students came to us fully formed and without insecurities, what would be the point?

Muse usually gestured like an amphetamine-fueled Sicilian who's nearly gotten clipped by a speeding car.

I didn't want to prejudge but based on the company he kept, the glistening of his suit, and the poser-like swagger, I somehow suspected that Shiny Suit was what the students today technically refer to as a douchebag.

In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.

If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills.

There's always a price you pay when you lie. Once you introduce a lie into a relationship, even for the best of intentions, it is always there. Whenever you're with that person again, that lie is in the room too. It sits on your shoulder. Good lie or bad lie, it's in the room with you forever now. It's your constant companion.

Megan looked into Agnes's frightened face. Agnes had been so sharp just a few years back - funny and cutting and wonderfully ribald.

There are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.

I wrote seven Myron Bolitar novels in a row, and I never want to write a Myron book where he just solves a crime. Every one of them I want to be personal, and I want him to grow and change. The problem with that is, it makes the series limited, you can't write a series where a guy is always going through some kind of crisis.

Liz Gorman, a fiery redhead, had been one of the founding members of the Raven Brigade.

Cherish and take care of what you value. Happiness is fragile. Appreciate every moment and do everything you can to protect it.

A sign read: YOUR STAY HERE IS TOUCH AND GO - TOUCH AND YOU GO.

In sum," Midlife said, giving the room his best you-the-jury baritone, "Our defense will be...?" He looked to Matt for the answer/
"Blame the other guy," Matt said.
"Which other guy?"
"Yes."
"Huh?"
"We blame whoever we can," Matt said. "The CFO, the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter-Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled."
"Isn't that contradictory?" Midlife asked, folding his hands and lowering his eyebrows. "Claiming both malice and mistakes?" He stopped, looked up, smiled, nodded. Malice and mistakes. Midlife liked the way that sounded.
"We're looking to confuse," Matt said. "You blame enough people, nothing sticks. The jury end up knowing something went wrong but you don't know where to place the blame. We throw facts and figures at them. We bring up every possible mistake, every uncrossed t and dotted i. We act like discrepancy is a huge deal, even if it's not. We are skeptical of EVERYONE.

Myron reached for the phone and dialed Win's number. After the eighth ring he began to hang up when a weak, distant voice coughed. "Hello?"
Win?"
Yeah."
You okay?"
Hello?"
Win?"
Yeah."
What took you so long to answer the phone?"
Hello?"
Win?"
Who is this?"
Myron."
Myron Bolitar?"
How many other Myrons do you know?"
Myron Bolitar?"
No, Myron Rockefeller."
Something's wrong," Win said.
What?"
Terribly wrong."
What are you talking about?"
Some asshole is calling me at seven in the morning pretending to be my best friend."
Sorry, I forgot the time.

Natalie had what I'd call a slow beauty, the kind you don't really notice at first and then it knocks you back and grows on you and she gets more beautiful every time you see her and then you can't believe that you ever thought that she was anything less than completely stunning. Whenever I saw her, my entire body reacted, as though it were the first time or better.

There is an old Yiddish phrase I find apropos - but not by choice: "Man plans, God laughs." I am a prime example. My life was pretty much laid out for me. I was a basketball star my entire childhood, destined to be an NBA player for the Boston Celtics. But in my very first preseason game, Big Burt Wesson slammed into me and ruined my knee. I tried gamely to come back, but there is a big difference between gamely and effectively. My career was over before I hit the parquet floor. I

There was in him some primitive instinct to protect his parents and siblings, but the rest of the world's inhabitants did not matter to him. They were background scenery, props, nothing more. The truth was - a truth he understood early - he derived intense pleasure from harming others. He always had. He didn't know why. Some people derive pleasure from a soft breeze or a warm hug or a victory shot in a basketball game. Nash derived it from ridding the planet of another inhabitant. He didn't ask this for himself, but he saw it and sometimes he could fight it and sometimes he could not. Then

If I had, say, a tall, amateur male lead living on the campus of a rural college (Six Years), the next book might feature a short, cop who lives in the heart of Manhattan (Missing You).

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

His black-to-gray beard was unruly enough to nest beetle larvae, his hair curled like something out of a bad production of Godspell.

Jessica came back into the room. When she saw Myron's face, she stopped and looked a question at him. Myron hung up and told her. She listened. Remembering Esperanza's crack, Myron realized that he had now spent four nights in a row here - a post-breakup world and Olympic record. He worried about that. It wasn't that he didn't like staying here. He did. It wasn't that he feared commitment or any of that other drivel; to the contrary, he craved it. But part of him was still afraid - old wounds that wouldn't heal and all that. Myron

The simplest answer is usually correct.

Esperanza's sexual preference flip-flopped like a politician in a nonelection year. Currently she seemed to be on a man kick, but Myron guessed that was one of the advantages of bisexuality: love everyone. Myron had no problem with it. In high school he had dated almost exclusively bisexual girls - he'd mention sex, the girls would say "bye." Okay, old joke, but the point remained.

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.

The two Crabfest eaters pulled out bills one at a time. Then they each opened their change purse as though it were a rusted chastity belt. Heidi

Maybe the answer isn't in another job," Wendy said. "Maybe the answer is in finding new ways to define manhood.

There are various theories about why the years seem to pass faster as you get older. The most popular is also the most obvious. As you get older, each year is a smaller percentage of your life. If you are ten years old, a year is ten percent. If you are fifty years old, a year is two percent. But she read a theory that spurned that explanation. The theory states that time passes faster when we are in a set routine, when we aren't learning anything new, when we stay stuck in a life pattern. They key to making time slow down is to have new experiences. You may joke that the week you went on vacation flew by far too quickly, but if you stop and think about it, that week actually seemed to last much longer than one involving the drudgery of your day job. You are complaining about it going away so fast because you loved it, not because it felt as though time was passing faster. If you want to slow down time, this theory holds: If you want to make the days last, do something different. Travel to exotic locales. Take a class.

Sports were supposed to be a reflection of life, a life lesson, a test of endurance and strength, a great preparation for the real world.

Myron looked at her. "Quite a coup," he said. "Thank you," she said. "We'll see how big a coup it is," Zuckerman said. "Zoom is moving into golf in a very big way. Huge. Humongous. Gigantic." "Enormous," Myron said. "Mammoth," Win added. "Colossal." "Titantic." "Bunyanesque." Win smiled. "Brobdingnagian," he said. "Oooo," Myron said. "Good one." Zuckerman

The phone rang. Joan Rochester leaped to her feet, but Dominick signaled her to sit with a wave of his hand. He wiped his face as though it were a windshield and rose from his seat. Dominick was a thick man. Not fat. Thick. Thick neck, thick shoulders, thick chest, thick arms and thighs. The

A tip jar read: FEAR CHANGE. LEAVE IT WITH US.

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.

There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned . "There," the editor says, handing you the glass. "It just needed a little tweaking.

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.

But every home is its own island with its own secrets.

Regrets and could-have-beens tried to sneak in, but he shoved them away. No time for this now.

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.

Parenting. It ain't for sissies.

By the time Myron was forced to return, their clients were scattering into the night like kitchen help during an immigration bust.

Mental illnesses are so strange. A physical problem we can understand. But when the mind works irrationally, well, by its very definition, the rational mind cannot truly relate.

Closely - you can't have a front without a back, you can't have an up without a down, and I'm not sure you can have light without dark, purity without sleaze, good without evil.

He looked maybe half an egg sandwich away from a coronary.

You can only be strong for so long.

If you give desperation any wiggle room, it will toy with you.

The humpback never sees the hump on his own back.

I'm a little bit of a control freak.

We move to the dance floor. We face each other. She puts one hand on my shoulder and the other hand in mine. We start to dance. At some point Ema moves closer. She rests her head on my shoulder.
I barely move. I barely breath.
I just want this moment to last.

There was genuine affection. Mom knew all this. "Thank God Eloise is uglier than a cow living near Chernobyl," Mom liked to say. "Or I might wonder." Dad

Cat fish? "
" A cat fish is a person who pretends to be someone thay're not online, especially in romantic relationships." Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. She needed that now. She needed to spout facts and figures and definitions and not feel a damn thing. "Someone took your pictures and created an online profile for you and put it on a singles site. Two women who fell for the catfish-you are missing.

At the end of the day, Esperanza stepped into Myron's office, sat down, and said, "I don't know much about family values or what makes a happy family. I don't know the best way to raise a kid or what you have to do to make him happy and well adjusted, whatever the hell 'well adjusted' means. I don't know if it's best to be an only child or have lots of siblings or be raised by two parents or a single parent or a gay couple or a lesbian couple or an overweight albino. But I know one thing." Myron looked up at her and waited. "No child could ever be harmed by having you in his life." Esperanza

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.

Hope can be the most wonderful thing in the world or it can crush your heart like an eggshell.

In short, we all want to be liked. The refs, like all humans, are all social creatures and assimilate the emotions of the crowd. Every once in a while, a referee will subconsciously make a call that will make the crowd happier.

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

I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.

Big Cyndi is six-six and on the planetoid side of three hundred pounds, the former intercontinental tag-team wrestling champion with Esperanza, aka Big Chief Mama to Esperanza's Little Pocahontas. Her head was cube shaped and topped with hair spiked to look like the Statue of Liberty on a bad acid trip. She wore more makeup than the cast of Cats, her clothing form-fitted like sausage casing, her scowl the stuff of sumos.

No characters in 'Stay Close,' including the leads, are black and white. I want them to be grey. I think that makes for a much more interesting reading experience, something that will stay with you a little bit longer.

Boy is getting all Ds and Fs in math so his parents send him to Catholic school. On his first report card, his parents are shocked to see their son getting straight As. When his parents ask him why, he says, Well, when I went into the chapel and saw that guy nailed to a plus sign, I knew they were serious.