Quotes from Harlan Coben

We were broken down into groups of six—mine featured three incoming freshmen and three upperclassmen who had just moved to town. "One

few things, I assure you, will devastate like the might-have-beens).

Uh-huh," Loren said. "Do me a favor, Lance. Pretend I'm your wife and skip the foreplay.

He squinted at the fluorescent light on the white ceiling. The Spanish praying continued. The familiar smell filled the air, that combination of harsh cleaners, bodily functions, wilting fauna and absolutely no natural air circulation. Mike's head dropped to the left. He saw the back of a woman hunched over a bed. Her fingers moved over the prayer beads. Her head seemed to be resting on a man's chest. She alternated between sobs and prayers—and a blend of the two. He

Her head hit the pillow without argument and, poof, sleep.

You," Win would tell him, "have a hero complex. You think you can make the world better. You are Don Quixote tilting at windmills." "And you?" "I'm eye candy for the ladies." Win.

The stupidest men are the ones who think they can't be wrong. The stupidest men are the ones who are most sure. The stupidest men are the ones who don't know what they don't know.

Maybe Jared was sick today. He lived, I knew thanks to Spoon, on the second floor of Barna House. I could go and see if he was there. The other option was to . . . to what? I could go find Ema at the deli, but then it might be harder to come back on campus without a lot of questions. Might

He flipped the channels because there were a lot of commercials on and because he was male.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as right or wrong. But I'm saying what may work for some doesn't work for others.

Two of our biggest delusions are that "loyalty" and "keeping promises" are admirable qualities. They are not. They are oft an excuse to do the wrong thing and to protect the wrong person because you are supposed to be "a man of your word" or have a bond with or allegiance to someone who deserves neither. Loyalty is too often used as a replacement for morality or ethics

Let her go? What kind of crap is that? She's eighteen, Myron. That makes her an adult. She asked you for a ride. You gallantly—and stupidly, I might add—gave her one. That's it." "That's not it.

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 they lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity.

It was the type of bad that made you want to do anything to please— —oh God please— —make it stop. It made you think about picking up a gun and silencing the sounds, if you knew where you were, if you knew that you were so close to your bedside table where you kept a gun in that small safe . . . Maya

Now that she was closer, she could see that Hat Tilt looked like Jay-Z—if Jay-Z suddenly aged ten years and never worked out and was a pasty white guy trying to look like Jay-Z. "No

Day had surrendered her rays, but the field, made from some newfangled artificial turf, had stadium-quality lights.

The maybe-groupie put her hands in the air. She wore, God help her, a T-shirt that read, "Ten-A-Fly's Main Ho!" Pops

Hester walked back and forth. She was a small woman, but she didn't look small. She looked compact and powerful and sort of dangerous. She didn't pace, Tia thought, so much as stalk. She gave off heat, a sense of power. "I

Somehow my father and golf were able to convey life lessons to me—patience, failure, humility, dedication, sportsmanship, practice, small improvements, missteps, mental error, fate, doing everything right and still not getting the desired result—without words. You may love the game, but as in life, no one—no one—gets out unscathed.

She started for the bedroom. I reached for the door to the corridor. "Myron?" I turned toward her. She stood facing me full. She was beautiful and vulnerable and strong and she stood like she was readying to take a blow and I wanted to jump in the way and protect her. "What?" I asked. "I love you," Terese said. She

Tia stepped into the room. Hester's hair was always frizzy, a sort of bottled off-blond. She somehow gave you the sense that she was harried and yet totally together. Some people command your attention—Hester Crimstein actually seemed to take you by the lapels and shake you and make you stare into her eyes. "Sure

Well, well." He turned toward the doorway. The nurse, a heavy woman with reading glasses perched upon her huge bosom, strolled in. Her name tag read BERTHA BONDY. She looked down at him and frowned. "Welcome to the free world, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?" It took Mike a second or two to find his voice. "Like I kissed a Mac truck." "Probably be more sanitary than what you were doing. Are you thirsty?" "Parched." Bertha

It's about Win," she said. Myron shook his head. "Then it's none of my business." "True enough. But that does not make you immune to responsibility, does it? Win is your friend. I count myself lucky that my son has a friend who cares like you do." Myron said nothing.

She had spotted three of them, at the very least. Probably more. She had also spotted the B&T Paint van. She'd dialed the number on the van's sign, but it was out of service. She checked with directory assistance. There was no B&T Paint. They