Quotes from Harlan Coben

The key to making time slow down is to have new experiences

They say it takes a long time to comprehend a tragedy. You're numb. You can't adequately accept the grim reality.

Esperanza said, "Some bottled blond with a bottled tan is down here to see you.

Win looked at him. "Were you ever in the military?" he asked. Pants seemed confused. "No." "You are a worthless punk," Win said in the same tone he might use when discussing a mixed stock report. "A pitiful ectoplasm such as yourself wearing army fatigues is an affront to any man or woman who has ever experienced real combat. If I ever happen across you again donning any similar garb, I will hurt you severely. Do I make myself clear?

His smile did more than lack warmth. It was the most purely physical smile Myron had ever seen, a byproduct strictly of the brain giving specific orders to certain muscles. It touched no part of him but his lips. Myron

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

He called us." "Dominick Rochester?" "Yes." "When?" "Last night. He said he met with you." Met, Myron thought. Nice euphemism.

She coughed into her fist. "I, ahem, don't want to sound didactic or fictitious in any manner," she began, doing a great Woody impression. She had his timing, the speech delay tactics. She had the hand mannerisms. She had the New York accent. It was her best work. "But I may have some important information." Myron

None of this was comforting. It was weird and it hurt. But (...) I did it anyway.

Just do the job, move on, don't leave any tracks. The rest was flotsam and jetsam.

Extremism and outrage are simple, relentless, attention-seeking. Rationality and prudence are difficult, exhausting, mundane. Occam's razor works in reverse when it comes to answers: If the answer is easy, it is wrong.

I don't mean little things like, say, what cereal turns out to be your favorite or whether you get into any AP classes or what girl you fall in love with or where you wind up living for the next twenty years. I mean total change. One second your world is one thing, the next—snap!—it is completely altered. All the rules, all the things you accepted about reality, are turned around.

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

Death is so close, always, a breath away, so perhaps it was wise to introduce children to that concept at an early age. Maya filled her head with inanities like this as she watched Joe's casket disappear into the earth. Distract yourself. That was the key. Get through it. The black dress itched. Over the past decade, Maya had been to a hundred-plus funerals, but this was the first time she'd been obligated to wear black. She hated it. To

The kitchen clock above the sink ticked. Wendy could look out the window and see the undergrads walking to class, all animated, young, with the clichéd rest of their lives waiting around the corner. Next year, Charlie would be one of them. You could tell these kids that it will go faster than they think, that they will blink and college will be gone and then ten years and another ten, but they won't listen, can't listen, and maybe that's a good thing. "I

Marianne drank. She drank for many reasons. Most of the time it was to party. She had been in too many places like this, looking to hook up and hoping it would come to more.

Ash had the gun in his gloved hand. The ski mask was in place. Ash had learned over the years that ski masks don't offer enough peripheral vision, so he'd already made the eye holes a little bigger. He stayed in his squat and waited. To his left, he could see Dee Dee had moved closer to the periphery. He frowned. She should know better and stay back. But that was Dee Dee.

The early morning joggers and walkers were on the circle. Most were on the elderly side and moved slowly. But not all. A group of four hotties, all hard-bodied and maybe twenty-ish, were jogging in his direction. Myron smiled at them and arched an eyebrow. "Hello, ladies," he said as they passed. Two of them snickered. The other two looked at him as though he'd just announced that he had a poopie in his pants. Win

He didn't believe in karma, but then again there was no reason to poke karma in the ribs.

Both fathers, Hunter Moore, a physician, and Chick Baldwin, a hedge fund manager, were summoned from their places of work.

So that was what Edna had been doing. Strolling down the street. Ignoring, as she often did, the sights and sounds. Lost in her own personal bliss of studying the faces of passersby. Noting cheek structure and mandibular depth, inter-eye distance and ear height, jaw contours and orbital spacing. And that was why, despite the new hair color and style, despite the fashionable glasses and adult makeup and clothing, Edna had recognized the missing girl.

Memories are something we reconstruct and piece together. They are fragments we manufacture to create what we think occurred or even simply hope to be true. In short, our memories are rarely accurate. They are biased reenactments.

According to Vada

Win sidled up next to him. "Did you give them the full-wattage smile?" "I'd say a good eighty, ninety watts." Win studied the young women before making a declaration: "Lesbians," he said. "Must be." "A lot of that going around, isn't there?" Myron did the math in his head. He probably had fifteen to twenty years on them. When it comes to young girls, you just never want to feel it.