Harlan Coben Quotes

Again, so had the rest of the ~ Harlan Coben

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

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? ~ Harlan Coben

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

Rachel looked uncomfortable. "My father is rarely around," she said, "but that doesn't mean he doesn't like to keep an eye on me. Last year, he put this parental spy software on all the home computers so he could monitor what I was doing." Ema said, "Yuck." "I know, right?" Ema shook her head and said, "Parents." I could see a softening between the two. It wasn't much. Softening might be too strong a word. Thawing might be more accurate. But it was there. "But the thing is, ~ Harlan Coben

One time Clu tried to explain it to me," Enos continued. "'Sometimes,' he said, 'you don't want to escape the world; sometimes you want to escape yourself.' " He cocked his head. "Do you believe that?" "Not really," Myron said. "Like a lot of cute phrases, it sounds good. But it also sounds like a load of self-rationalization. ~ Harlan Coben

Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return. ~ Harlan Coben

Sure, on a larger scale, it was healthy to have people out there you cared about more than yourself. She knew that. But then there was the abject fear you would lose it. They say possessions own you. Not so. Loved ones own you. You are forever held hostage once you care so much. ~ Harlan Coben

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

One guy named Lars was writing a six-hundred-page poem on Hitler's last days in the bunker, written from the viewpoint of Eva Braun's dog. His first reading consisted of ten minutes of barking. "It sets the mood," he explained, and he was correct if that mood was to punch him hard in the face. Natalie's ~ Harlan Coben

chances. I want to make sure that Dan Mercer never hurts anyone ever again." "By killing ~ Harlan Coben

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

I pretty much only wear Lilly Pulitzer ties because my best friend owns the company. ~ Harlan Coben

Sure, he had left some parts out - how they had offered to pay the Rinskys more than the house was worth, for example - but this wasn't about being balanced. Attorneys take sides. The other side, if and when they responded, would give their spin. You were supposed to be biased. That was how the system worked. ~ Harlan Coben

And I love the twist. I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, and on the very last page, quite often - very last paragraph sometimes - I like to just play with your perception one more time in a way that makes everything that came before just a little bit different. ~ Harlan Coben

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

Replicas never have the ghosts. They're bodies without souls. ~ Harlan Coben

I don't find any real rivalries with crime and thriller writers anyway. That might sound a little Pollyanna, but for the most part the writers I compete with, if you want to use that word, it's a pretty friendly rivalry. I think we all realise that the boat rises and sinks together. ~ Harlan Coben

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

She rose. Lindsey was pretty in a way that only the young are, with that enthusiasm and smile that belong exclusively to the innocent or the cult recruiter. ~ Harlan Coben

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 ~ Harlan Coben

You can't have an up without a down, a left without a right - and you can't have good times without expecting bad. ~ Harlan Coben

On the outside, he's all cold and detached," she said. "But underneath that - way down deep inside - he's all cold and detached. ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

Intuition was often a way of cutting corners, a nifty technique of replacing hard evidence and facts with something far more elusive and capricious. The worst investigators Carlson knew relied on so-called intuition. ~ Harlan Coben

Comes to my door. Mr. Mayor now. Got the suit, with the American flag in the lapel. Don't join the military; don't help out the little guy; don't take in your tired, your poor, your huddled masses - but if you wear a little flag, you're a patriot. ~ Harlan Coben

Win took another putt. Another make. "We're not the same, you and I. We both know that. But it's okay." "It's not okay." "Yes, it is. If we were the same it wouldn't work. We'd both be dead by now. Or insane. We balance each other. It's why you're my best friend. It's why I love you." Silence. "Don't do it again," Myron said. Win did not reply. He lined up another putt. "Did you hear me?" "It's time to move on," Win said. "This incident is in the past. You know better than to try to control the future." More silence. Win sank another putt. ~ Harlan Coben

Your fellow soldiers had to know that you had their back. That was rule one, lesson one, and above all else. If the enemy goes after you, he goes after me too. ~ Harlan Coben

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

It's not the dead even. They're gone. Nothing you can do about that. It's what's left behind - the echo. These woods you're walking through. There are some old timers who think a sound echoes here forever. Makes sense when you think about it. That Billingham kid. I'm sure he screamed. He screams, it echoes, just bounces back and forth, the sound getting smaller and smaller, but never entirely disappearing. Like a part of his is still calling out, even now. ~ Harlan Coben

Some strip joints called themselves "gentlemen's clubs," and businessmen wore suits and acted above the riffraff. There was no such pretense at the Eager Beaver. This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth. People fought. The bouncers had bigger guts than muscle because muscle was show and these guys would seriously kick your ass. Olivia ~ Harlan Coben

A trial is two narratives competing for your attention. ~ Harlan Coben

We humans can't see straight. We are always biased. We always protect our own interests. ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

Grief can be inordinately selfish. ~ Harlan Coben

Her smile shames the sun ~ Harlan Coben

I love you, Terese. I always will." Something changed. I could see it in her body language. A stiffening of the spine maybe. The best friend was slipping away. An adversary was coming to the surface. ~ Harlan Coben

I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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. ~ Harlan Coben

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 ~ Harlan Coben

You're aware," Myron said, "that kidnap victims often identify with their abductors." "I know all that. The Stockholm syndrome and all its bizarre offshoots. But it just didn't seem that way. Katie didn't look particularly exhausted. The body language was right. There wasn't panic in her eyes or any kind of cult-like zealousness. Her eyes were clear, in fact. I didn't see signs of drugs there, though granted I only got a brief look. ~ Harlan Coben

An hour before his world exploded like a ripe tomato under a stiletto heel, Myron bit into a fresh pastry that tasted suspiciously like urinal cake. ~ Harlan Coben

Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you're going to get at it. ~ Harlan Coben

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

At one time, this might have been a nice area, but now the neighborhood looked like a man who'd lost his job and stopped bathing. ~ Harlan Coben

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

I'm driving home to change," Win said. "Then I'm dining at Merion." Mainliners never ate; they dined. "Care to join me?" "Sounds good," Myron said. "Wait a second." "What?" "Are you properly attired?" "I don't clash," Myron said. "Will they still let me in?" "My, my, that was very funny, Myron. I must write that one down. As soon as I stop laughing, I plan on locating a pen. However, I am so filled with mirth that I may wrap my precious Jag around an upcoming telephone pole. Alas, at least I will die with jocularity in my heart." Win. "We have a case," Myron said. Silence. Win made this so easy. "I'll tell you about it at dinner." "Until then," Win said, "it'll be all I can do to douse my mounting excitement and anticipation with a snifter of cognac." Click. Gotta love that Win. Myron hadn't driven a mile when the cellular phone rang. Myron switched it on. It was Bucky. "The kidnapper called again. ~ Harlan Coben

Have you ever taken a good look at the statue? Most people see the blindfold first and, well, that's an obvious reference to impartiality. It's also nonsense since everybody is partial. You can't help it. But take a look at her right hand. That's a sword. That's a kick-ass sword. That's supposed to represent swift and often brutal, even deadly punishment. But you see, only she - the system - can do that. The system, as messed up as it is, has the right to use that sword. You, my friend, do not." "Are ~ Harlan Coben

Manhattan scene - you are surrounded and yet you find solace; you find isolation in the tornado of people. ~ Harlan Coben

The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies. ~ Harlan Coben

In the end, we're just their caretakers, Mike. We get them for a little while and then they live their lives. I just want him to stay alive and healthy until we let him go. The rest will be up to him." Mike ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

It's just that . . . when you have kids, it just changes things." "Do me a favor, Yates. Please don't give me that having-children-alters-you spiel. I listen to that crap enough from my painfully few friends. ~ Harlan Coben

Oh, please." Hickory looked skeptical. "Your show is pure sensationalism. Tripe tabloid at its worst - " Wendy interrupted him. "We've met before, Mr. Hickory." That slowed him down. "Have we?" "When I was an assistant producer on A Current Affair. I booked you as an expert on the Robert Blake murder trial." He ~ Harlan Coben

...the grandmothers interrogated one another, measuring their own children and grandchildren against the competition, seeking an opponent's weakness and any conversational opening to jab forward with tales of offspring heroics, no one really listening, just preparing for the next frontal assualt, familial pride getting confused with self-worth and desperation. ~ Harlan Coben

This is the price you pay for having a great father. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments - and you get the tears at the end, too. ~ Harlan Coben

I look at her, then at Tasha, and I feel the wondrous blend of bliss and fear. They
bliss and fear
are constant companions. Rarely does one venture out without the other. ~ Harlan Coben

They're politicians,' Win said. 'They'd lie and evade if you asked them what they had for breakfast. ~ Harlan Coben

I never allow mediocrity on the golf course. Yet I allowed it to dominate my personal life. Don't you find that odd?" Myron made a noncommittal motion with his head. He could feel Linda's unhappiness radiating off her like a breaking fever. She looked up now and smiled at him. The smile was intoxicating, nearly breaking his heart. He found himself wanting to lean over and hold Linda Coldren. He felt this almost uncontrollable urge to press her against him and feel the sheen of her hair in his face. He tried to remember the last time he had held such a thought for any woman but Jessica; no answer came to him. "Tell me about you," Linda suddenly said. The change of subject caught him off guard. He sort of shook his head. "Boring stuff." "Oh, I doubt that," she said, almost playfully. "Come on now. It'll distract me." Myron ~ Harlan Coben

You could trust nature but not man. ~ Harlan Coben

Route 95 in Connecticut and New York is basically a series of construction areas masquerading as an interstate highway. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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

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

Could you move a little closer?" She smiled. "I think not." "I showered." She ignored the remark. "I understand that you occasionally do some investigative work," Susan Lex said. Myron did not reply. "Is that correct?" "Depends on what you mean by investigative work." "I'll take that as a yes," Susan Lex said. Myron gave her a suit-yourself shrug. ~ Harlan Coben

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 ~ Harlan Coben

Sitting for an hour without reading material meant he had to think. ~ Harlan Coben

Myron didn't step back. He didn't make a fist, but man, he wanted to. Despite the rushed call from his wife, Chick wore a shiny silk suit with a tie so perfectly knotted it looked fake. His shoes had an almost supernatural shine, like they were somehow more than new, and his hair was black with just the right amount of gray, slicked back and a little too long. His skin had the waxy glow of a recent facial or some sort of high-end cosmetics, and the word "manscaped" was encompassed in every move Chick made. Brooke ~ Harlan Coben

A friend once told Megan that we are always seventeen years old, waiting for our lives to begin. More than ever, clutching to this man, Megan understood that. ~ Harlan Coben

Matt rested his head against the bus window, the vibration working like a strange massage. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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. ~ Harlan Coben

But every home is its own island with its own secrets. ~ Harlan Coben

I remember one time I heard this English professor asking the class what the world's scariest noise is. Is it a man crying out in pain? A woman's scream of terror? A gunshot? A baby crying? And the professor shakes his head and says, 'No, the scariest noise is, you're all alone in your dark house, you know you're all alone, you know that there is no chance anyone else is home or within miles - and then, suddenly, from upstairs, you hear the toilet flush. ~ Harlan Coben

Norm Zuckerman was approaching seventy and as CEO of Zoom, a megasize sports manufacturing conglomerate, he had more money than Trump. He looked, however, like a beatnik trapped in a bad acid trip. Retro, Norm had explained earlier, was cresting, and he was catching the wave by wearing a psychedelic poncho, fatigue pants, love beads, and an earring with a dangling peace sign. Groovy, man. His black-to-gray beard was unruly enough to nest beetle larvae, his hair newly curled like something out of a bad production of Godspell. Che ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

I have learned that human beings are all about incentives ~ Harlan Coben

Diamonte shook his head again. He reached down and put his hand on his right boot. Myron had seen him do this before. He liked to sort of pet the boot. Myron had no idea why. Maybe he found the feel of snakeskin soothing. Reminiscent of the womb. ~ Harlan Coben

Daisy wore a clingy black dress with a neckline so deep it could tutor philosophy. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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

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. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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

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. ~ Harlan Coben

It be nicer to think your parents, who worked hard, gave you those presents instead of some creepy stranger? ~ Harlan Coben

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 ~ Harlan Coben

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 ~ Harlan Coben

I'm not a fan of self-help books - how can something be 'self-help' if the book itself is purportedly helping you? ~ Harlan Coben

You want this so badly - this second chance, this chance at real redemption - that you can't see the truth." "What ~ Harlan Coben

Defending her scandalized ex-husband had cost Jenna Wheeler's family greatly in the suburban standings - but the murder of Haley McWaid must have made life here fairly untenable. Parents ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

Logan's overall score was a six-point-seven. Jimmy only has a score of six-point-four. Even with today's new math, six-point-seven is greater than six-point-four. I can show you with a graph if that would help. ~ Harlan Coben

Sex is for anyone; the aftermath is for lovers. ~ Harlan Coben

Writers always say, 'I always knew I wanted to be a writer; when I was a three-month-old foetus a pen formed in my hand and I began to scratch my first story on the inside of my mother's womb.' I started later, in my early twenties. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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

The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way, but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work. ~ Harlan Coben

You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left, a back without a front - or a happy without a sad. ~ Harlan Coben