Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Harlan Coben, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Harlan Coben quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 342 Harlan Coben quotes for you to read and share.

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The room did not go quiet like something out of an old Western where the sheriff pushes open the creaking door and sashays into the saloon. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the door needed to creak. -- Harlan Coben
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It be nicer to think your parents, who worked hard, gave you those presents instead of some creepy stranger? -- Harlan Coben
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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 -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Being a parent is not for the faint of heart. I may joke about knowing fear, but the fact is, the first time I ever knew real fear was the day Charlotte, my first child, was born. Suddenly there is someone in the world you care about more than anything. -- Harlan Coben
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You live among this ridiculous wealth and you get lost. You worry about nonsense like spirituality and inner health and satisfaction and relationships.You have no idea what it is like to starve, to watch yourself turn to bones. -- Harlan Coben
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If I'm not writing well, I'm not happy. If I'm not spending enough time with my family, I'm not happy. If I'm not connecting to friends or if I don't work out enough ... You get the point. Everything has to be balanced. Nothing should be an extreme. -- Harlan Coben
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They're politicians,' Win said. 'They'd lie and evade if you asked them what they had for breakfast. -- Harlan Coben
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Children learn much more from how you act than from what you tell them. There are times this worries me - we parents are rarely the role models we want to be. True for life. True for driving. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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I am very lucky that I get to tell stories for a living. I love being able to grab people's attention, to keep them turning the pages, to make them stay awake all night. I want to stir the pulse, yes, but also to stir the heart. I hope 'The Woods' does that. -- Harlan Coben
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I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good. -- Harlan Coben
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It was late when he got home, but as usual, every light in the house was still switched on. A lot of school time nowadays was spent on conservation and renewable energy, but his two boys hadn't learned yet how to depart a room without leaving on the lights. He -- Harlan Coben
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Ten-A-Fly took off his sunglasses as if they'd angered him. His scowl aimed for intimidation but seemed more in the neighborhood of constipation. "So -- Harlan Coben
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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
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He stared at Ryan and felt that overwhelming feeling he sometimes got when he looked at his boys - part pure joy, part fear of what could happen to them in this cruel world, part wishes and hopes, all blended together in the only thing in this entire planet that felt completely pure. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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If you give desperation any wiggle room, it will toy with you. -- Harlan Coben
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Sometimes the loudest cries for help are silent. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Some men carry torches for old loves, and then some guys - not many, but some - get completely consumed by the torch's flames. It makes them nothing but long-term trouble for the follow-ups. -- Harlan Coben
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The grease from the awful lunch buffet took to the air, becoming more a skin coating than a smell. -- Harlan Coben
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Secrets...were cancers. Secrets festered. Secrets ate away at your innards, leaving behind nothing but a flimsy husk. -- Harlan Coben
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I like to see the difference between good and evil as kind of like the foul line at a baseball game. It's very thin, it's made of something very flimsy like lime, and if you cross it, it really starts to blur where fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair. -- Harlan Coben
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Manhattan scene - you are surrounded and yet you find solace; you find isolation in the tornado of people. -- Harlan Coben
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I'm a little bit of a control freak. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won't work. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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It was more about understanding that you could give it your all, give yourself the best chances, but control is an illusion. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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William Goldman's Marathon Man was a novel that taught me about suspense. I was maybe 16 years old when I read it and I remember thinking, "You could put a gun to my head and I wouldn't put this book down." I loved that feeling - and want to give it others. -- Harlan Coben
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How are you feeling?" he asked. "Like I kissed a bus." He -- Harlan Coben
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The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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The sun was now in its death throes, bruising the sky a coiling purple and orange. -- Harlan Coben
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Always better to be cautious. Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard. Shane -- Harlan Coben
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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 -- Harlan Coben
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Let me back up a little and tell you why I prefer writing to real life: You can rewrite. A novel, for example, can be cleaned up, altered, trimmed, improved. Life, on the other hand, is one big messy rough draft. -- Harlan Coben
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The Neck Cracker said, "Who are you?" again. Matt would not risk it. He sighed and took out his camera phone. "I'm Bob Smiley, Channel Nine News." That -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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His world was wobbly but back on the axis. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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What we so admire and call "single minded dedication" was really "obsessive self-involvement". What in that exactly is admirable? -- Harlan Coben
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So now what? Kick down the door . . . and then what? Find an old lady in a weird white dress and demand she explain her whack-a-doodle rants? Maybe she had gone upstairs. Maybe Bat Lady was now getting ready for her loony day, changing out of her white dress, heading to the shower . . . Ugh. -- Harlan Coben
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Myron was playing Mr. Bureaucrat to the hilt; nothing made a person feel more impotent. There is no darker pit than the blank stare of a bureaucrat. -- Harlan Coben
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When Myron was ten years old, his father had taken him and his younger brother, Brad, to a game. Brad was five at the time. Dad had secured -- Harlan Coben
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A trial is two narratives competing for your attention. -- Harlan Coben
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There were copies on the table. Ten-A-Fly dressed like Snoop Dogg on a bender making gangsta hand signs that made one think not so much of intimidation as an unusual state of palsy. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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
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I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, I love to fool you a third time. And just when you think it's all over, I have what I call that Carrie hand-out-of-the-grave moment. Just when you think it's all over, I'm going to hit you with just one more. I can't help myself. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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 -- Harlan Coben
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A dancer on break approached him. She smiled. Each tooth was angled in a different direction, as if her mouth were the masterwork of a mad orthodontist.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"You're really cute."
"I don't have any money."
She spun and walked away. Ah, romance. -- Harlan Coben
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Sunlight when Maya exited -- Harlan Coben
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The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn't know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman's 'Marathon Man.' That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Tia is too overprotective. You know that." Mike put down his cell phone. "Adam quit the hockey team." Mo made a face as if Mike had suggested that his son had gotten into devil worship or bestiality. "Whoa." Mike -- Harlan Coben
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Shauna stalks into a room as though it offends her. She was a plus-size model, one of the few known by one name. Shauna. Like Cher or Fabio. She stood six one and weighed one hundred ninety pounds. She was, as you might expect, a head-turner, and all heads in the waiting room obliged. Shauna -- Harlan Coben
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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
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When I looked into her eyes, I could see forever -- Harlan Coben
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Losing my parents was the most crushing thing that ever happened to me. I lost my dad when I was 26, and it changed my life entirely. -- Harlan Coben
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Billy Joel was on the radio, singing, "I love you just the way you are." Big talk, Myron mused, when you've been married to Christie Brinkley. -- Harlan Coben
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Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon. -- Harlan Coben
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Casual affairs never interested him. Every girl he met was gauged as a potential life partner, a soul mate, an undying love, as though every relationship should be a Carpenters song. -- Harlan Coben
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Death teaches you that. You would give anything, forgive anything, for just one more second. . . . -- Harlan Coben
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A model shoot was going on at half-court. Lots of those umbrella lights and tall, bony women-cum-children and tripods and people huffing and fluffing about. Myron waited for someone to mistake him for a model. And waited. -- Harlan Coben
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Thomas had gotten his learner's permit a week ago - the parental equivalent of a stress test without using an actual EKG machine. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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 -- Harlan Coben
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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
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The Newark train station is about as romantic as a pile of hippo dung with head lice. -- Harlan Coben
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I never bought the excuse of not having time to write. If you really want to do it, you're either going to find those hours or eventually decide not to be a writer. -- Harlan Coben
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We don't pray in foxholes because we are ready to meet our Maker. We pray because we don't want to. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills. -- Harlan Coben
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Would it be too hackneyed to wonder where it all went so wrong? Kitty's -- Harlan Coben
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Another weird thing about funerals: Wear black but kill something as colorful as flowers to decorate. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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If you want to experience love, then you have to be ready for pain. One doesn't come without the other. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't have to worry about losing you. If you want laughter, expect tears. -- Harlan Coben
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We know that everything in our lives is complex and gray. -- Harlan Coben
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Part of the human condition is that we all think that we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have our own dreams and hopes and wants and lust and heartaches. We all have our own brand of crazy -- Harlan Coben
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Wow." "You've got quite the vocabulary." "Never use a big word when a small one will suffice." "I could make a crack here, but I won't. -- Harlan Coben
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Matt rested his head against the bus window, the vibration working like a strange massage. -- Harlan Coben
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Most people understand on some level that there are a lot of surveillance cameras out there, but very few people really get it. There are forty million surveillance cameras in the United States alone and the number keeps growing. You never go through a day without being recorded. -- Harlan Coben
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chances. I want to make sure that Dan Mercer never hurts anyone ever again." "By killing -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Parenting. It ain't for sissies. -- Harlan Coben
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In the movies, killers are omnipotent. -- Harlan Coben
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The humpback never sees the hump on his own back. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Right now, even though he'd been dead for years, she wanted to collapse in her father's big arms and hear him tell her that everything would be all right. Do we ever outgrow that need? -- Harlan Coben
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Well now everything dies, baby that's a fact. But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back. - Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City -- Harlan Coben
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Years fly by, but the heart stays in the same place. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Some people held grudges; Esperanza clutched them and tied them around her waist and used cement and Krazy glue to hold them steady. -- Harlan Coben
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Way to nail Cozone. Her cell phone buzzed as -- Harlan Coben
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You bring your own weather to the picnic. -- Harlan Coben
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Cherish and take care of what you value. Happiness is fragile. Appreciate every moment and do everything you can to protect it. -- Harlan Coben
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That's what a good crime novelist - any good novelist - should do with you: play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight. -- Harlan Coben
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Larry ended up being salutatorian of his class at Livingston High. -- Harlan Coben
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Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is - and that reality is so horrible the lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity. -- Harlan Coben
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Perhaps the greatest lesson was also the simplest: Cherish and take care of what you value. Happiness is fragile. Appreciate every moment and do everything you can to protect it. The rest of life, in a sense, is background noise. -- Harlan Coben
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I found something in Mercer's room," Walker said in a voice as gray as a tombstone. "I think it belongs to Haley McWaid. -- Harlan Coben
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You stay in the surreal world of so-called higher learning. You are comfortable there. You have very little reason to leave it. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Stopped her by raising his hand. I don't want to argue with you, Sara. I know you feel differently. Suffice to say that this is how I see it. -- Harlan Coben
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But if Frank had wanted Pavel dead, he would have had Aaron do it. Pavel had been murdered between midnight and one. Aaron was dead by midnight. Myron mulled this over a bit and decided that Aaron's being dead made it extremely unlikely he was the killer. -- Harlan Coben
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The only two places you stand on receiving lines are funerals and weddings. There was probably something poignant in that fact, but Maya couldn't imagine what it could be. She -- Harlan Coben
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I'm not very happy idle. -- Harlan Coben
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Every relationship has fissures and cracks. That doesn't mean it's meaningless or bad or even wrong. We know that everything in our lives is complex and gray. Yet we somehow expect our relationships to never be anything but simple and pure. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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I actually had to close my eyes, rub them, -- Harlan Coben
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I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain. -- Harlan Coben
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Sometimes even when the book is over I don't know who's good and who's bad. It's really more interesting, I think, to write about gray characters than it is to write about black and white. -- Harlan Coben
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War is never a meritocracy for the casualties. -- Harlan Coben
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God, she loved this kid. Wendy had one of those waves, the ones that sneak up on parents and crush them and make them just want to wrap their arms around their kid and never let him go. -- Harlan Coben
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I can write pretty much anywhere if you give me time and some quiet. The home is not usually the best place because I have four children. It's usually pandemonium around here! -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Some people are conduits for misery. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Ambition is natural when you don't have anything. You know what you're driving for. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Guys who always shined their shoes were usually self-involved asswipes who figure superficiality trumps substance. -- Harlan Coben
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Muse usually gestured like an amphetamine-fueled Sicilian who's nearly gotten clipped by a speeding car. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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By the time Myron was forced to return, their clients were scattering into the night like kitchen help during an immigration bust. -- Harlan Coben
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A writer without a reader doesn't exist. -- Harlan Coben
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The house had the stale smell of a grandparent. When you're a kid, the smell gives you the creeps; when you're an adult, you want to bottle it and let it out with a cup of cocoa on a bad day. -- Harlan Coben
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Jared was her son and the "co-general manager" of the Yankees - co meaning shares the title with someone who knows what he's doing because he got the job through nepotism. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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 -- Harlan Coben
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A sign read: YOUR STAY HERE IS TOUCH AND GO - TOUCH AND YOU GO. -- Harlan Coben
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Some people are drawn to trouble. 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. -- Harlan Coben
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There was an awkwardness to him, a stoicism that most people, with their need for appearances and fake smiles, found off-putting. Shane couldn't handle small talk or the excess bullshittery of modern society. When -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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The rule of thumb in student files seemed to be, If you have nothing negative to say, don't say anything at all. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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I'm also inspired by anything that I consider great. It makes me want to raise my game too - Hitchcock movies, Hopper paintings, Springsteen concerts. -- Harlan Coben
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You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving. -- Harlan Coben
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I would rather raise certain topics and maybe let you ruminate on them. I'm not big on answering them. -- Harlan Coben
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You want this so badly - this second chance, this chance at real redemption - that you can't see the truth." "What -- Harlan Coben
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I'm thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me. -- Harlan Coben
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Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued. -- Harlan Coben
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The tires bore down, kicking up dust like an Arabian stampede. Elizabeth flipped off the car stereo. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that she was studying my profile. I wondered what she saw, and my heart started fluttering. -- Harlan Coben
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I'd never had money growing up, and it's never been that important to me, except maybe to take our kids on a nice vacation or something like that. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Luckily, Dixie, Ernie, and the two girls, Sissy and Mary Ann, all loved his money. Money was power, no question about it. Sanders remembered how his father used to recite the Golden Rule - he who has the gold makes the rules. And Sanders had the gold. The power. The control. And -- Harlan Coben
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Big Cyndi crossed the room with an agility that belied the bulk. She wrapped me in an embrace that made me feel as if I'd been mummified in wet attic insulation. In a good way. -- Harlan Coben
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"better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down. -- Harlan Coben
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Corny, yes, but there you go. Purity. That was what hit you when you get lost looking at your own child - a purity that could be derived only from true, unconditional love. He loved Ryan so damned much. -- Harlan Coben
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I ordered a cheeseburger and a beer from a waitress who looked as though she wanted to be in one of those want-to-get-away? commercials. She called me hon. I love when a waitress calls me hon. -- Harlan Coben
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My love for you is like diarrhea," Sunglasses said. "I just can't hold it in. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Kate Atkinson is an absolute must-read. I love everything she writes. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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I don't necessarily love the sports per se, I love the stories behind them. Also in a kind of perverse way I like to study what it does to us, why we care so much. It's caring about something that's utterly meaningless. -- Harlan Coben
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That's the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song -- Harlan Coben
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He checked his watch. "One more drink," Win said. "And then I will go in the other room because - oh, you'll love this - Mee so horny." I -- Harlan Coben
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The simplest answer is usually correct. -- Harlan Coben
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Sure, okay, enjoy World Book Day but celebrating reading one day a year is like "getting some" only on Valentine's Day. -- Harlan Coben
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Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return. -- Harlan Coben
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Only bad writers think they're good. -- Harlan Coben
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Memories, you see, hurt. The good ones most of all. -- Harlan Coben
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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). -- Harlan Coben
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Kids don't come with instructions. We all mess up. Raising a child is pure impromptu. -- Harlan Coben
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When you can see the stakes, when you realize the true purpose of your mission, it motivates you. It makes you focus. It makes you push away the distractions. You gain clarity of purpose. You gain strength. -- Harlan Coben
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The gray has no chance against that smile. It vanishes in a wonderful haze of bright color. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Dreams never die. Sometimes you think they are dead, but they are just hibernating lie some old bear. And, if the dream has been hibernating for a long time, that bear is going to wake up grumpy and hungry -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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
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It's been a long day." "It's only nine in the morning." Myron said, "For what breeds time but two hands on a clock? -- Harlan Coben
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The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time. I don't do too many notes. I keep it mostly in my head. I usually start writing a new book around January, and it's due October 1. -- Harlan Coben
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Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher. -- Harlan Coben
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But see, feminism isn't about helping a fellow sister. It's about an equal playing field. It's about giving women choices, not guarantees." Tia -- Harlan Coben
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On the radio a rock group called the Motels were repeatedly singing the ingenious line Take the L out of lover, and it's over. Deep. Literal, but still deep. The Motels. Whatever happened to them? -- Harlan Coben
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In the end, we know what makes us happy. We also know what makes us unhappy. That's the irony. We know and yet we still mess it up. That's part of the human condition, no, and why we need to work on it. -- Harlan Coben
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She looks really happy."
"Everyone looks happy on Facebook."
"I know, right? What's up with that? -- Harlan Coben
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And that's not all," she went on. "He's typing his memoirs. A man who can't scribble down a grocery list without consulting Strunk and White suddenly thinks he's an ex-president." They -- Harlan Coben
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The lake was hold-your-breath still, but I swore I could still hear Dad's howl of delight as he cannonballed off the dock, his knees pressed tightly against his chest, his smile just south of sane, the upcoming splash a virtual tidal wave in the eyes of his only son. -- Harlan Coben
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When we stepped out of the car, I heard the ghosts. Lots of them here, too many, swirling and battling for my attention. My father's won out. -- Harlan Coben
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You have heart disease, people understand. When the brain gets sick, well, it's almost impossible to comprehend. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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
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Esperanza handed him a slip of paper. "Here's the office number for Susan Lex, Dennis's older sister." Myron read the number like it was in code and might mean something. "I had another thought. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Megan looked into Agnes's frightened face. Agnes had been so sharp just a few years back - funny and cutting and wonderfully ribald. -- Harlan Coben
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I read Parker's Spenser series in college. When it comes to detective novels, 90 percent of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it. -- Harlan Coben
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After three rings the machine picked up. Win's annoyingly superior accent said, "Hang up without leaving a message and die." Beep. Myron shook his head, smiled, and, as always, left a message. He -- Harlan Coben
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The receptionist at Horne, Buckman and Pierce, a classic battle-ax who was comfortably past her prime, eyed Loren as if she'd recognized her from a sex offender poster. Full frown in place, the battle-ax told her to sit. Randal -- Harlan Coben
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Mrs. Friedman lived in a happy snow globe of AP History. -- Harlan Coben
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Obsession does not seek out problems and correct them; it manufactures them out of nothing, feeds them, makes them stronger. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.' -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Most of the blood - nearly all of it, really - belonged to the victim, Rick Collins," Berleand said. His voice was measured now, as if he were trying to wade his way through whatever he was about to tell us. "That's hardly a surprise." We -- Harlan Coben
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Esperanza's side had so many colors, Crayola sent a scout. -- Harlan Coben
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Hope she's not getting Gloria." "Why?" "She kinda looks like a white version of me," Jake said. "Only with a heavier beard. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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We humans can't see straight. We are always biased. We always protect our own interests. -- Harlan Coben
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More than once, I've wished my real life had a delete key. -- Harlan Coben
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Make no mistake, adolescence is a war. No one gets out unscathed. -- Harlan Coben
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There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation. -- Harlan Coben
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Myron sipped his coffee. Gourmet coffee. A year ago he never drank coffee. Then he started stopping into one of the new coffee bars that kept cropping up like bad movies on cable. -- Harlan Coben
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He tried to read, but the words swam in front of his eyes in meaningless waves. He put on the television. Nick at Nite, the cultural equivalent of aerosol cheese. -- Harlan Coben
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This was life though, wasn't it? Death made you crave life. The world is nothing but a bunch of thin lines separating what we think are extremes. -- Harlan Coben
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As we got closer to Notre Dame, I said, "Would you be embarrassed if I rounded my shoulders, dragged my left leg, and shouted, 'Sanctuary! -- Harlan Coben
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She felt something deeper and richer with Dave, something driven by years and commitment, but maybe that was just fancy talk. That sort of electricity - had she ever felt it with her husband? Was it fair to even compare or think such things? Were such thoughts alone a betrayal? You -- Harlan Coben
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Hope could be a wonderful thing. But hope could crush you anew every single day. Hope could be the cruelest thing in the world. -- Harlan Coben
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The girl cupped her hands over her eyes and blinked. She was pretty enough, with blonde highlights that you can only find in youth or a bottle. "Hi." Loren -- Harlan Coben
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Years ago, Myron had found this all somewhat poignant and oddly comforting - the war relic now housing artists - but the world was different now. In the eighties and nineties, it had all been cute and quaint. Now this "progress" felt like phony symbolism. Near -- Harlan Coben
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The world doesn't give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems. -- Harlan Coben
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I still try to make the "next" book my "best" book. I want to grip and move you in unexpected ways. -- Harlan Coben
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I remember the days of sitting at book signings, playing with my pen when no one would come, and still I even then thought I was living the dream, because I had a book out. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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An old Croatian proverb Adam had learned in college applied here: The hunchback sees the hump of others - never his own. -- Harlan Coben
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A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made. -- Harlan Coben
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If I don't write, I hate myself. Simple as that. My life is out of balance. -- Harlan Coben
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Spend money to make money. -- Harlan Coben
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So basically, that entire theory is blown to hell."
Not basically," Win corrected. "Entirely. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth. -- Harlan Coben
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She said that if you hold on to hate, you lose your grip on so much more. -- Harlan Coben
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Muse grabbed the envelope. "Everything in here?" Chamique frowned. "Oh, no, you did not just ask me that." Muse -- Harlan Coben
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Watch out for people who belong in your past. Don't let 'em back in your life. -- Harlan Coben
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Brutus was out of the car first. He opened the door for me. I thanked him. Brutus stuck with the stoic. He had the kind of cigar-store-Indian face you couldn't imagine - and probably wouldn't ever want to see - smiling. On -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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tilted her head, like a dog hearing a strange sound. "Does pain happen if you don't remember it?" Kat -- Harlan Coben
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Sitting for an hour without reading material meant he had to think. -- Harlan Coben
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Some things we pack away, stick in the back of the closet, never expect to see again - but we can't quite make ourselves discard them. Like -- Harlan Coben
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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
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The cardinal rule: You never have to take back words you don't say. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing. -- Harlan Coben
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There is a certain fate to the universe and a certain randomness. -- Harlan Coben
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Win. He was often described in the society pages as an "international playboy," and she guessed that fit. He was blue-blooded old money, very old money, the kind of old money that disembarked from the Mayflower and immediately called for a caddy and a tee time. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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Too touristy a move for such a sophisticate as moi? Of course. But there is a reason certain activities become touristy, no? My -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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 -- Harlan Coben
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Emily pinned him with her eyes. "Custody battles are war without the Geneva Accords," she said. "Greg got nasty. I got nasty back. You do whatever you have to in order to win. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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He had learned never to disturb her when the keyboard was clacking. He left a quick note and slipped out. He grabbed the 6 train up to midtown and walked to the Kinney lot on 46th Street. Mario tossed him the keys without glancing up from his paper. -- Harlan Coben
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Kids don't do what their parents say-they do what they see their parents do. So who was to blame here? -- Harlan Coben
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Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else. -- Harlan Coben
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In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury. -- Harlan Coben
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Route 95 in Connecticut and New York is basically a series of construction areas masquerading as an interstate highway. -- Harlan Coben
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So basically your plan is to flail about helplessly. -- Harlan Coben
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I'm not a big sports fan. -- Harlan Coben
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Myron kept his eye on Patrick, but he also couldn't help but watch Big Cyndi work the crowd. Thirty seconds after she got back into action, the queue to have a photo taken with her was so long the Naked Cowboy looked at her askance. She glanced at Myron. Myron gave her a big thumbs-up. Here -- Harlan Coben
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Why do humans never really learn the lessons we are supposed to? What is in our makeup, in fact, that draws us to that which should sicken us? -- Harlan Coben
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The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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I pretty much only wear Lilly Pulitzer ties because my best friend owns the company. -- Harlan Coben
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He sounded genuine, but Myron knew that meant nothing. People were amazing liars. -- Harlan Coben
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Whatever else a father is in this life - cop, fireman, Indian chief - he provides for his family. He -- Harlan Coben
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Regrets and could-have-beens tried to sneak in, but he shoved them away. No time for this now. -- Harlan Coben
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When you're young you don't get how great it is to be loved unconditionally. -- Harlan Coben
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Liz Gorman, a fiery redhead, had been one of the founding members of the Raven Brigade. -- Harlan Coben
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Myron remembered something his father once told him: People have an amazing capacity to mess up their own lives. -- Harlan Coben
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Maybe the answer isn't in another job," Wendy said. "Maybe the answer is in finding new ways to define manhood. -- Harlan Coben
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She had trouble simply enjoying and letting be. She liked to correct and make right. -- Harlan Coben
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Desperation can toy with you and if you give desperation any wiggle room, it will find alternative answers -- Harlan Coben
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Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard. -- Harlan Coben
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Again, so had the rest of the -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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. -- Harlan Coben
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I said everyone looks happy. That was kinda my point. If you judge the world by Facebook, you wonder why so many people take Prozac. -- Harlan Coben
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But when in doubt, you might as well keep an open mind. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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You can only be strong for so long. -- Harlan Coben
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I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction. -- Harlan Coben
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The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter. -- Harlan Coben
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I have learned that human beings are all about incentives -- Harlan Coben
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I don't regret the things I've done. I regret the things I didn't do when I had the chance. -- Harlan Coben
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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? -- Harlan Coben
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He looked maybe half an egg sandwich away from a coronary. -- Harlan Coben
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An awkward impasse. No one knew exactly how to say good-bye. A wave? A handshake? A kiss? -- Harlan Coben
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Sex is for anyone; the aftermath is for lovers. -- Harlan Coben
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He called us." "Dominick Rochester?" "Yes." "When?" "Last night. He said he met with you." Met, Myron thought. Nice euphemism. -- Harlan Coben
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Hope can be the most wonderful thing in the world or it can crush your heart like an eggshell. -- Harlan Coben
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Her smile shames the sun -- Harlan Coben
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I frowned. "Don't you guys have a steroid needle that needs an ass cheek?" Their -- Harlan Coben
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With choice comes guilt. No escaping it. -- Harlan Coben
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Certain problems cannot be solved if you are constantly entertained and distracted. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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Myron and Win met up three blocks away near an elementary school. A parked car here would be less conspicuous. Win was dressed in black, including a black skull cap that hid his blond locks. -- Harlan Coben
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Violence doesn't solve anything. Win would make a face when I said that, but the truth was, whenever I resorted to violence, it never just ended there. Violence ripples and reverberates. It echoes and really never seems to go silent. -- Harlan Coben
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Survival is the thing. The mind will twist to survive. Anything can become normal. -- Harlan Coben
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Myron nodded. "The hotel on Route 80? Maybe five miles from here?" "Right. My source doesn't know what it was for or what ended up on it. He just knows the work was for the Downing divorce. He also confirmed the obvious: this thing is usually done to catch a spouse in flagrante delicto." Myron -- Harlan Coben
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I'd rather read than relax. I'd rather keep the mind engaged. -- Harlan Coben
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They needed some Jews or gays or something to spice things up, to add a bit of theater and a couple of interesting bistros. -- Harlan Coben
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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
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I don't remember how big the balloons were. I was a kid then. Everything looks bigger when you're a kid. -- Harlan Coben
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Replicas never have the ghosts. They're bodies without souls. -- Harlan Coben
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Home was a secure haven for that - a familial cone of honesty, if you will. -- Harlan Coben
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I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring. -- Harlan Coben
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Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something -- Harlan Coben
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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
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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
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A voice flat enough to fit under a door crack. -- Harlan Coben
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All around her, children and families played and laughed and reveled in the glory of this seemingly ordinary day. They did so without fear or care because they didn't get it. They all played and they all laughed and they felt so damn safe. They didn't see how fragile it all was. -- Harlan Coben
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The truth may be better than lies ... But it doesn't always set you free. -- Harlan Coben
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I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness. -- Harlan Coben
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Secret revealed is a secret destroyed. -- Harlan Coben
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We all think that we are uniquely complex, that no one can see what we are thinking - yet we also believe that we have the rare ability to read others. This fascinates me at the moment. -- Harlan Coben
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Painful memories didn't just ease back in-they shoved the door open hard, all of them and all at once -- Harlan Coben
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Amazing what humans, even ones as wanton as Frank Ache, crave when left alone - other humans. -- Harlan Coben
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In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart. -- Harlan Coben
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We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it. -- Harlan Coben
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There is silence, and then there is rural silence, silence you could feel and reach out and touch, silence with texture and distance. -- Harlan Coben
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Death is so close, always, a breath away, so perhaps it was wise to introduce children to that concept at an early age. Maya -- Harlan Coben
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The Bad Man isn't lurking in playgrounds, kiddies. He lives in your house. -- Harlan Coben
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Writing isn't about the process. It is about creating. The joy comes not from the process but from the creation. -- Harlan Coben
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Dreams are fragile. Dreams don't last. -- Harlan Coben
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Looked me straight in the eye and spoke an indisputable truth: You don't know my life. -- Harlan Coben
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Every kid, Megan thought, is a frustrated lawyer, finding loopholes, demanding impossible levels of proof, attacking even the most minute of minutia. -- Harlan Coben
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But every home is its own island with its own secrets. -- Harlan Coben
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You're not a hypocrite. You aim toward lofty heights. The fact that your arrow cannot always reach them does not make you a hypocrite. -- Harlan Coben
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Oh, you've made plenty of short stories long. But never, ever, have you made a long story short. -- Harlan Coben
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Did you ask Mario?" "He wouldn't say." I didn't ask who Mario was. I figured Terese would fill me in later. Terese -- Harlan Coben
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Kimberly Green had a major conniption. "Are you insane?" They -- Harlan Coben
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I don't care about other kids. Only mine. -- Harlan Coben
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A Spoon swoon, if you will. -- Harlan Coben
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Acceptance of the inevitable, a sign of a wise man. -- Harlan Coben
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We're called New Jersey but we're actually the suburbs of New York. -- Harlan Coben