Quotes from Harlan Coben

Voltaire to me: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Do you know where he went earlier that day?" Tawny shook her head. The stale stench of hairspray and regret wafted toward him.

and you quickly learn that your child comes to you hardwired, that in the battle of nature vs nurture, nature kicks complete and total ass.

Time passed, but neither one of them noticed. They talked, mostly about Chad and the kind of son he was. Jack had held on and still led by eight strokes. A gigantic lead. If he blew it this time, it would be worse than twenty-three years ago. The

She dabbed her eye. A sarcastic rejoinder came to my lips, but I bit it back.

The ugliest truth is better than the prettiest lie.

Wendy noticed that her chair was at least two inches lower than the others'. Classic—albeit amateur—intimidation move. Wendy crossed her arms and actually slid lower. Let them think they have the advantage. "So

A child comes out hardwired. That was what you learned as a parent—that your kid is who he is and what he is and that you, as a parent, greatly overstate your importance in his development.

Later, Simon would claim he felt the danger before it all went wrong. There may indeed be something primal in human beings, some survival mechanism from our caveman days of constant danger that lies dormant in modern man, some sixth sense or instinct that almost never needs to surface in our society, but it's still there, still potent yet latent in a deep part of our genetic makeup.

tilted her head, like a dog hearing a strange sound. "Does pain happen if you don't remember it?" Kat

Myron looked at the door as Zorra entered in all his sartorial splendor. He wore his Veronica Lake–on–meth wig, a green monogrammed sweater, and a skirt in a hue Zorra would undoubtedly call "sea foam." When

Maybe the ugly clothes had a more functional origin. Maybe in the old days, when animals roamed free, golfers dressed this way to ward off dangerous wildlife.

But you were there, correct? Perhaps whoever was on the other side of your online communications –and we really don't know who that was at this point –but perhaps that person had seen your news' –Flair said it as though the word 'news' itself tasted bad in his mouth –'program and decided to play along so he could meet a luscious thirty-six-year-old TV star. Isn't that possible?

Every house on every street is really just a family facade. We look at it and think we know what's going on inside, but we never really have any idea.

Drew Van Dyne gave him the cocky grin. Van Dyne was probably thirty-five, ten years younger than Davis. He'd come in as a music teacher eight years ago. He looked the part, the former rock 'n' roller who woulda-shoulda made it to the top except the stupid record companies could never understand his true genius. So now he gave guitar lessons and worked in a music store where he scoffed at your pedestrian taste in CDs. Recent

He opened the door and headed into the kitchen. The kitchen table was a mess, done up in Early American Homework. Thomas's algebra textbook was open to a problem that asked him to complete the square in the quadratic function f given by f(x) = 2x2 – 6x = 4. A number two pencil lay snuggled in the book's crevice. Sheets of white-with-light-blue-squares graph paper were strewn everywhere. Some of the sheets had fallen to the floor.

So Ema and I went our separate ways. I got home, still lost in my thoughts. I had figured out what had happened in the Caldwell household. Most of it, anyway. I was having trouble making all the pieces fit. There was, I knew, only one way to get the answers I needed. It was going to involve putting myself in more peril. I didn't relish that either. There was a fine line between being daringly brave and foolishly suicidal. I wasn't in the mood to find out just how fine. But

Are you Fester?" The man had forearms like marble columns at the Acropolis. The beer mug looked like a shot glass in his enormous hand. "Who wants to know?" "Who do you think? Me.

We're in a minefield," she said. "Like someone just dropped us right in the middle of it, and if we move too fast in any direction, we're going to step on an explosive and blow this whole thing up.

They never liked me." "No, I don't suppose they did." "And Esperanza? Does she still refer to me as Queen Bitch?" "She hasn't so much as mentioned your name in seven years." That made her smile. "Like I'm Voldemort. In the Harry Potter books." "Yep, you're She-who-must-not-be-named." Myron

He opened the door. "Hello?" "Daddy! Uncle Mo!" It was Jill, his eleven-year-old princess, tearing around the corner, that smile plastered on her face. Mike felt his heart warm—the reaction was instantaneous and universal. When a daughter smiles at her father like that, the father, no matter what his station in life, is suddenly king. "Hey

You're okay," Myron said to him, cupping the boy's head. "It's over now." But it wasn't. An

An old Croatian proverb Adam had learned in college applied here: "The hunchback sees the hump of others—never his own." Three

My client is trussed up like an S-and-M prop," Flair countered. "She's in no danger.