Harlan Coben Quotations | Page 2

The most annoying and full- of- crap thing a writer says is, I write only for myself, I don't care if anyone reads it. A writer without a reader doesn't exist.

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

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

What I love about the thriller form is that it makes you write a story. You can't get lost in your own genius, which is a dangerous place for writers. You don't want to ever get complacent. If a book starts going too well, I usually know there's a problem. I need to struggle. I need that self-doubt. I need to think it's not the best thing ever.

Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something

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

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.

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

I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.

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.

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

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.

A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.

I wish i could tell you that through the tragedy i mined some undiscovered, life-altering absolute that i could pass on to you.I didn't.The cliches apply-people are what count,life is precious,materialism is over rated, and the little things matter,live in the moment-and i can repeat them to you ad nauseam.you might listen, but you won't internalize.Tragedy hammers it hm.Tragedy etches into your soul.You might not be happier.But you will be better.

I used to wonder why Lucy liked those songs so much. You know what I mean? She sits in the dark and listens and cries. Music does that to her...I didn't understand for a long time. But I do now. The sad songs are a safe hurt. It's a diversion. It's controlled. And maybe it helps you imagine that real pain will be like that. But it's not. Lucy knows that, of course. You can't prepare for real pain. You just have to let it rip you apart.

Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay

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.

It was one lesson he never forgot.You don't sit back when you or a loved one is being assaulted.And you don't act like the goverment with their "proportional responses" and all that nonsense.If someone hurts you,mercy and pity must be put aside,You eliminate the enemy.You scorch the earth.

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.

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.

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

Man plans. God laughs.

You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.

This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.

No, I don’t live in heartache. I don’t cry myself to sleep or any of that. I am, I tell myself, over it. But I do feel a void, icky as that sounds. And—like it or not—I still think about her every single day.

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.

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.