Quotes from Harlan Coben

I don't care about other kids. Only mine.

Emma wouldn't wear anything the least bit feminine. Putting on a dress usually required a negotiation of Middle East sensitivity, with often an equally violent result.

She would never forget her beautiful little boy. Never. No matter what. Not for a second. That was what she realized. You don't move past something like that—you learn to live with it. No matter how much pain you are in. You don't fight that pain. You don't push it away. You embrace it and let it become a part of you. It's the only way. The only thing more painful than remembering Matthew was the idea she might actually forget him.

Nice place," I said. "Ain't it just the maddest? It's a little rough diamond to remind me of the better times. So, now who the hell are you?" I introduced myself and asked him if he recalled a fatal car accident from ten years ago. I mentioned Terese Collins. He interrupted me midway through.

My name is Myron Bolitar." "Should I genuflect?" "I'd prefer it if you just lift the drop arm." The

Helio was fresh off a four-year stint upstate for armed robbery. He looked it too. Sunglasses, a doo-rag on his head, white T-shirt under a flannel shirt that had only the top button buttoned so that it looked like a cape or bat wings. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing crude prison tattoos etched onto his forearm and the prison muscles coiling thereunder. There is an unmistakable look to prison muscles, a smooth, marblelike quality as opposed to their puffier health club counterparts. We

Assistant Secretary for Health of the Department of Health and Human Services—a long and rather unimpressive title, Raymond Markey thought. But he knew better. His office was in charge of the U.S. Public Health Service, controlling such agencies as the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health—hardly an unimportant or ceremonial post. Markey

I hadn't spoken to Rick in nine years." "Nine years," I repeated. "That would be right around the time we met." She looked at me. "Don't be dazzled by my mathematical prowess," I said. "Math is one of my hidden talents. I try not to brag.

Both boys giggled at that one. Then growing more somber, Blakely said, "But man oh man, what a total Babe Lair." "Love Nest." "Herpes Haven." "Penile Palace." "Beaver Trap." Myron tried not to sigh. It was like hanging out with a really annoying thesaurus. He turned to Win and asked what the plan was. "Follow

She had another map of the grounds flattened on the desk and was showing a color-coordinated young couple that Simon would anachronistically call yuppies the "most arduous hiking trail on the property.

It is always us against them. That's what all of life is. We fight wars for that reason. We make decisions every day to protect our own loved ones, even if it means hardships for others. You buy your boy a new pair of cleats for lacrosse. Maybe you could have used that money to save a starving child in Africa. But no, you let that child starve. Us against them. We all do this." "Tripp?

a primitive, inner warning trill that you cannot quite explain. Modern man, more afraid of embarrassment sometimes than safety, often ignores it at his own peril. Melon

When she got back to the house, Cora was awake and at the computer and groaning. "Can I get you something?" Grace asked. "An anesthesiologist," Cora said. "Straight preferred but not required." "I was thinking more like coffee." "Even better." Cora's fingers danced across the keyboard. Her eyes narrowed. She frowned. "Something's wrong here.

When Myron looked at the reception desk—the place where Esperanza usually sat—he nearly jumped back. Big Cyndi sat silently watching him. She was far too big for the desk—far too big for the building, really—and the desk actually teetered on her knees. Her makeup would be labeled "too garish" by members of Kiss. Her hair was short and seaweed green. The T-shirt she wore had the sleeves ripped off, revealing biceps the size of basketballs. Myron

It's too hard for people to accept. The weak-minded invent invisible gods and gardens and reunions in paradise. Or some. like you, won't buy unto that nonsense, but it's still too painful to admit the truth. So you come up with this 'how can we know?' rationale.

you'd heard he was a great teacher and that

Hey, Krinsky," Myron said. Krinsky barely nodded. Mr. Loquacious. Myron

Cope cupped his hand to his ear. "Listen, Frank. Hear it?" His voice was a whisper. "That's the sound of your incompetence being made obvious to the masses. Not just your incompetence, but your suicidal stupidity at going after your superior when the facts do not back you up." "I

Regrets and could-have-beens tried to sneak in, but he shoved them away. No time for this now.

Myron wasn't sure if the question was rhetorical or not. The corridor had the stale stench of spilled beer and academic worry. There was a bulletin board overloaded with flyers, meetings for all kinds of groups and clubs, everything from badminton to belly dancing, from feminist thought to flute choir. There were clubs with names Myron didn't understand, like Orchesis or Gayaa or Taal, and what was the Venom Step Team? "For

Oh, honey, I'm as messed up as the rest. I just learned not to care so much. You know? We fight wars for freedom, right, and then what do we do with that freedom? We tie ourselves down with possessions and debt and, well, other people. If I seem happy, it's because I do what I want when I want." Megan

fifty-fifty. Sometimes they are sixty-forty, sometimes eighty-twenty. You'll be the eighty sometimes, you'll be the twenty others. The key is to accept and be okay with that.

If you are reading this, you were born in the top one percent of history's population, no question about it. You've experienced luxuries that painfully few people in the history of mankind could have even imagined. Yet instead of appreciating that, instead of doing more to help those beneath us, we attack those who got even luckier for not doing enough.

Never fails. Scratch a guy who always talks about what a winner he is or how he's "self-made" or how he's pulled himself up by the bootstraps, and underneath you'll always find a little boy who had everything handed to him. It was like they needed a blind spot to justify their tremendous luck. Something like: I can't have all of this because of fate or chance—I must be special. "I'm