Quotes from Harlan Coben

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.

The sad songs are a safe hurt. It's a diversion. It's controlled. And maybe it helps you imagine that real pain will be like that. But it's not. Lucy knows that, of course. You can't prepare for real pain. You just have to let it rip you apart.

Extremists are relentless. They don't see right or wrong—they see us and them.

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.

If you give desperation any wiggle room, it will toy with you.

A voice flat enough to fit under a door crack.

I'd always hated running. Born-again joggers described how they got addicted to the rapture of running, how they achieved a nirvana known as a runner's high. Right. I'd always firmly believed that--much like the high of auto-asphyxiation--the bliss came more from a lack of oxygen to the brain than any sort of endorphin rush.

Libraries for me have always had a cathedral-like ambiance, a hushed sanctuary where learning is revered, where we the people elevate books and education to the level of the religious.

She looks really happy. Everyone looks happy on Facebook. I know, right? What's up with that?

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.

You grow immune to cruelty. It becomes the norm. You accept it. You move on.

Don't Tell Me the Sky's the Limit When There Are Footprints on the Moon

I have learned that human beings are all about incentives

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.

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.

There are virtually no major life decisions you make that are not in some way based on your finances.

They say you never know how someone will react when the grenade is thrown.

You want this so badly—this second chance, this chance at real redemption—that you can't see the truth." "What

We humans can't see straight. We are always biased. We always protect our own interests.

Man may be evil or good, that wasn't the issue. The issue was that man rarely considered the consequences of his actions. In short, man was often just plain stupid.

Her smile shames the sun

Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon.

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.

Oh, you've made plenty of short stories long. But never, ever, have you made a long story short.