Harlan Fisk Quotes

Prisons are cesspools of corruption, inhabited by snitches, opportunists, and guards on the take. ~ Matt Leatherwood Jr.

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

I'm a little bit of a control freak. ~ Harlan Coben

It crouches near the center of creation. There is no night where it waits. Only the riddle of which terrible dream will set it loose. It beheaded mercy to take possession of that place. It feasts on darkness from the minds of men. No one has ever seen its eyeless face. When it sleeps we know a few moments of peace. But when it breathes again we go down in fire and mate with jackals. It knows our fear. It has our number. It waited for our coming and it will abide long after we have become congealed smoke. It has never heard music, and shows its fangs when we panic. It is the beast of our savage past, hungering today, and waiting patiently for the mortal meal of all our golden tomorrows. It lies waiting. ~ Harlan Ellison

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

At core, no matter how kindly may be your thoughts of the human race, there are times when all you want to do is crumple it up and either set fire to it, or use it to pad the floor of a bird cage.
Big bird cage.
Really big bird. ~ Harlan Ellison

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

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

Relationships and marriages are hard enough, but you add war into the mix and small fissures become gaping wounds. No one sees what you're seeing - again that clear-eyed, unbiased thing - except your fellow soldiers. It's like one of those movies where only the hero can see the ghosts and everyone else thinks the hero is crazy. In ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

Humor should not be dissected because nothing lives through dissection. ~ Harlan Ellison

The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. ~ John Marshall Harlan

There is a certain fate to the universe and a certain randomness. ~ Harlan Coben

War is never a meritocracy for the casualties. ~ 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

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

Love your parents - while we are busy growing up, they are growing old. ~ 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

Science fiction used to be a dangerous literature. Now, it is a very commercial genre, and whatever dangers might still lurk within seem to have been safely sanitized for the marketplace. The real crime is that the lobotomy has been self performed. I ~ Harlan Ellison

The reason why there are so many police officers surrounding this house is because they want to make sure that we do not remove anything before a search warrant is issued. They have made it crystal clear that they want no Kardashians on this one." Kardashian. As in O.J. The man had changed law lexicon forever. ~ Harlan Coben

The bin Laden I met each time was in a simple Saudi white robe, with a simple, cheap kafiya and very cheap plastic sandals. But a videotape released before September 11, which I saw on Lebanese television, had him in a gold embroidered robe. When I saw this, I thought, whoa, has this guy changed? I wouldn't have imagined him ever appearing in such golden robes when I met him. ~ Robert Fisk

We all want to convince ourselves that it is about hard work and education and perseverance, but the truth is, life is much more about the fickle and the random. We don't want to admit it, but we are controlled by luck, by timing, by fate. ~ 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

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

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

The pain flooded in again. It was always there, of course. Through the shaking hands and slapping of the backs, the grief stayed by his side, tapping Griffin on the shoulder, whispering in his ear, reminding him that they were partners for life. ~ Harlan Coben

If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law. ~ Harlan F. Stone

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

The Bad Man isn't lurking in playgrounds, kiddies. He lives in your house. ~ Harlan Coben

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 ~ Harlan Coben

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. ~ Harlan Coben

You'd call this fellow out, whoever he is?"
"In a bloody heartbeat. When this silly house party is over, we're going into Town and buying my duchess a handsome little pistol to carry in her reticule, and we're showing her how to use it. Then we'll explain bullwhips to her, and get her an archery set as well."
Harlan took the terrace steps two at a time. "Noah, what are you going on about?"
"Marital bliss, Harlan, wooing my duchess, and the kind of family we are now. ~ Grace Burrowes

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

But sometimes, maybe most times, it isn't that clear. It is dark and you are near the edge of a cliff, but you're moving slowly, not sure which direction you're heading in. Your steps are tentative but they are still blind in the night. You don't realize how close you are to the edge, how the soft earth could give away, how you could just slip a bit and suddenly plunge into the dark. ~ Harlan Coben

When you hit thirty-five or forty, you know on one level that you are no longer the physical specimen you once were. ~ Harlan Coben

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

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

We don't pray in foxholes because we are ready to meet our Maker. We pray because we don't want to. ~ Harlan Coben

Herschel Grynszpan's life was enigmatic, elusive and tragic. The traces he left on the historical record are just sufficient to tantalize and baffle historians. Harlan Greene has woven from these threads a riveting novel, erotic, haunting, and profoundly moving. ~ Janette Turner Hospital

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

Writing a novel in general is like trying to reach a mountain top you'll never quite reach - so you try again and maybe get a little closer. ~ Harlan Coben

Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste? ~ Harlan Ellison

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 ~ Harlan Coben

A voice flat enough to fit under a door crack. ~ Harlan Coben