Quotes from Harlan Coben

Dee Dee moved closer to Ash. She smelled the way only a beautiful woman can, like honeysuckle and lilacs and some form of ambrosia. Her proximity was a distraction. He didn't like that.

She flipped on the radio and tried to listen to angry talk radio. The hosts always had such easy answers to the world's problems. Kat found their simplicity irritating and thus their shows, in an odd way, wonderfully distracting. Those who had easy answers, be they on the right or the left, were always wrong. The world is complex. It is never one-size-fits-all. When

There are some people you know are

Sitting in this house now, time zoomed in and out, toying the way it does, making something far away suddenly appear right over your shoulder. Guy

I wrote seven Myron Bolitar novels in a row, and I never want to write a Myron book where he just solves a crime. Every one of them I want to be personal, and I want him to grow and change. The problem with that is, it makes the series limited, you can't write a series where a guy is always going through some kind of crisis.

Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher.

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

I remember the days of sitting at book signings, playing with my pen when no one would come, and still I even then thought I was living the dream, because I had a book out.

When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head.

I love stories. When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head.

If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills. Clearly I'm not meant to do anything else.

If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills.

Kate Atkinson is an absolute must-read. I love everything she writes.

I've never chased the dollar, I've always chased the reader's heart. I love having more readers. The more people who read it, the more thrilled I am.

I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do.

That's the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song

I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.

I still try to make the "next" book my "best" book. I want to grip and move you in unexpected ways.

Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something

I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring.

I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves.

I am very lucky that I get to tell stories for a living. I love being able to grab people's attention, to keep them turning the pages, to make them stay awake all night.

I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, I love to fool you a third time. And just when you think it's all over, I have what I call that Carrie hand-out-of-the-grave moment. Just when you think it's all over, I'm going to hit you with just one more. I can't help myself.

I'm also inspired by anything that I consider great. It makes me want to raise my game too - Hitchcock movies, Hopper paintings, Springsteen concerts.