Harlan Coben Quotes

You bring your own weather to the picnic.

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

Only bad writers think they're good.

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

..."better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.

There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.

Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken.

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.

A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made.

Sometimes the loudest cries for help are silent.

I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good.

I'm a little bit of a control freak.

Memories, you see, hurt. The good ones most of all.

The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time.

Im 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.

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

Kids don’t do what their parents say-they do what they see their parents do. So who was to blame here?

This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.

Years fly by, but the heart stays in the same place.

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

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

Painful memories didn't just ease back in-they shoved the door open hard, all of them and all at once

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

I am, after all, a thriller writer. I routinely delve into the darkest chambers of the human heart. I've written about murder, kidnapping, depravity, horror, violence, and disfigurement.

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.

I still try to make the "next" book my "best" book. I want to grip and move you in unexpected ways.

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.

Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher.

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.

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.

A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.

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.

...desperation can toy with you and if you give desperation any wiggle room, it will find alternative answers

Kate Atkinson is an absolute must-read. I love everything she writes.

I've never chased the dollar, I've always chased the reader's heart. I love having more readers. The more people who read it, the more thrilled I am.

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.

You want this so badly—this second chance, this chance at real redemption—that you can’t see the truth.

I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring.

Man plans. God laughs.

I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.

I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.

In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart.

When you like something and you're pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don't ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it.

I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do.

We're called New Jersey but we're actually the suburbs of New York.

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.

That’s the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song

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?

Sometimes even when the book is over I dont know whos good and whos bad. Its really more interesting, I think, to write about gray characters than it is to write about black and white.

The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter.