Quotes from Harlan Coben

Coach Bobby put his finger in my face. I debated biting it off—that always gets a man's attention. "You're a dead man, Bolitar. You hear me? A dead man." "A deaf man?" I said. "A dead man." "Oh, good, because if I were a deaf man, I wouldn't be able to hear you. Come to think of it, if I were a dead man, I wouldn't be able to either." The

Making friends?" Tripp asked. "I'm a people person," Adam said. "You know he's the VP of the board, right?" "I must remember to genuflect next time I see him," Adam said. "I'm

Okay, time to stop the dance," Thurston said. "What else have you learned, Loren?" Loren. Already calling her Loren. Again she checked with Steinberg. Again he nodded.

It was ten A.M., but the place still had a few pathetic customers and even more pathetic dancers. One staff member set up the always-popular, all-you-can-eat ("food only"—ha-ha) buffet, mixing congealed food trays from Lord knows how many days ago. It would be trite to note that the buffet was a salmonella outbreak waiting to happen, but sometimes trite is the only sock in the drawer. Rudy

just put the gun down. Let's go home. Please." "My God," Sheriff Yiannikos said under his breath, "he's going to do it." Myron could see that too. He debated making a move, sprinting toward the boy, but there

She had learned that somewhere and stockpiled it in the back brain closet, the same closet where she stored information about Daryl Hannah being in Splash and Esperanza Diaz being the wrestler dubbed Little Pocahontas, the same closet that helped make Grace, in Jack's words, "Mistress of the Useless Factoid.

The mayor spread his arms. "What do you think of the place? Beautiful, am I right?" It looked to Adam like a conference room at a Courtyard Marriott, which was to say neat, generic, and impersonal. Adam gave a noncommittal head nod. "Walk

You, married." He shook his head. "I was never big on commitment, was I?" "You change partners like a cineplex changes movies." Esperanza

Well, when they forced them all out, where do you think the sleaze went?" Myron looked at the nail salon. "Here?" "Here, there, everywhere. You don't kill sleaze, Mr. Bolitar. It just moves to a new host.

Heather Howell started fiddling with her wedding band. "I really haven't gotten all the facts yet, but before we can enter probate, this . . . Let's call it a snafu, shall we? . . . This snafu just has to be untangled. I have my best people on it. I'll be in touch soon." With everyone momentarily stunned silent, Heather Howell quickly spun and left the room.

Rudy sat behind his desk. He could have worked as an extra on The Sopranos, except the casting director would deem him too much on type. He was a big man, sporting a gold chain thick enough to pull up a Carnival Cruise anchor and a pinkie ring that most of his dancers could wear around their wrists.

Do you know what bisexual means?" "Of course," Myron said. "I dated a lot of bisexual women—I'd mention sex, the girl would say, 'Bye.' Ã¢â'¬Â Esperanza

in the United States, the government doesn't decide what makes a man happy. The government doesn't decide that a couple who worked hard and bought their own home and raised their family would now be happier living somewhere else.

When you say 'specialty clubs'—?" "Let's see. If you care for flaxen-haired women, you go to On Golden Blonde. That's on the second floor, far right. If you're into African-American men, you head up to the third floor and visit a place called—you might like this, Mr. Bolitar—Malcolm Sex." Myron

Myron parked next to a black BMW. There were maybe a dozen other cars, all glistening from fresh washes and waxes or perhaps they were all new. Mostly Mercedes Benzes. A few BMWs. A Bentley. A Jag. A Rolls. Myron's Taurus stood out like a zit in a Revlon commercial. The

Win normally drove a Jaguar, but he had smashed a 1983 Chevy Nova into the van. Totaled. Not that it mattered. Win had several such vehicles he kept out in New Jersey to use for surveillance or activities just east of legal. The car was untraceable. The plates and paperwork were all phony. It would never lead back to anyone. Myron

That made Rudy's eyes widen. "So? What was that, twenty years ago?" "Seventeen." "Long time ago. In a place like Atlantic City, it's a lifetime." Boy, did that make sense. You live in dog years here. Everything ages faster. And

I don't know why, but I decided to walk over to her.… because the lonely can sometimes sense the lonely.

It's the devil—he gets ahold of you. He pokes and prods until he finds your weakness and then, see, he wiggles right through your skin and gets into your bloodstream. Could be through drink. Could be through gambling. Could be through a virus, like cancer or something. Or the devil could be in the smack, the rock, the meth, whatever. It's all the devil in different forms.

Cheeseburger medium rare, fries, a Bud." "You want an angiogram after that?" "Good

Students cannot imagine that professors have real lives in the same way they can't imagine their parents having sex. On one level, that was fine. On another, I constantly remind them to look past themselves. 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. My

So what do we do?" "What we always do. At least in the morning. Tonight I have plans." "And those would again be between Yu and Mee?" "I would say bingo again, but I so hate repeating myself." "You

If a man had enough to eat, he'd want to grow a second mouth.' He also had a dirty way of saying it, but I won't repeat it here." Kat

He passed a hair salon called Snip Away, which sounded more like a vasectomy clinic than a beauty parlor. The Snip Away beauticians were either reformed mall girls or guys named Mario whose fathers were named Sal. Two patrons sat in a window - one getting a perm, the other a bleach job. Who wanted that? Who wanted to sit in a window and have the whole world watch you get your hair done?