Harlan Coben > Quotes

“..."better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.”
― Harlan Coben

“Years fly by, but the heart stays in the same place.”
― Harlan Coben, Promise Me

“Myron reached for the phone and dialed Win's number. After the eighth ring he began to hang up when a weak, distant voice coughed. "Hello?"
Win?"
Yeah."
You okay?"
Hello?"
Win?"
Yeah."
What took you so long to answer the phone?"
Hello?"
Win?"
Who is this?"
Myron."
Myron Bolitar?"
How many other Myrons do you know?"
Myron Bolitar?"
No, Myron Rockefeller."
Something's wrong," Win said.
What?"
Terribly wrong."
What are you talking about?"
Some asshole is calling me at seven in the morning pretending to be my best friend."
Sorry, I forgot the time.”
― Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker

“Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken.”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“I remember one time I heard this English professor asking the class what the world's scariest noise is. Is it a man crying out in pain? A woman's scream of terror? A gunshot? A baby crying? And the professor shakes his head and says, 'No, the scariest noise is, you're all alone in your dark house, you know you're all alone, you know that there is no chance anyone else is home or within miles—and then, suddenly, from upstairs, you hear the toilet flush.”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“Man plans. God laughs.”
― Harlan Coben

“Sure, on a larger scale, it was healthy to have people out there you cared about more than yourself. She knew that. But then there was the abject fear you would lose it. They say possessions own you. Not so. Loved ones own you. You are forever held hostage once you care so much.”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“The ugliest truth, in the end, was still better than the prettiest of lies.”
― Harlan Coben

“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 the lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity.”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“A dancer on break approached him. She smiled. Each tooth was angled in a different direction, as if her mouth were the masterwork of a mad orthodontist.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"You're really cute."
"I don't have any money."
She spun and walked away. Ah, romance.”
― Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker

“For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do?It takes so much to hold on to hate—you lose your grip on what's important, you know?”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“Summer romances cometo an end. That was part of the deal. They are built like certain plants or insects, not able to survive more than one season. I thought we would be different. We were, I guess, but not in the way I thought. I truly believed that we would never let each other go. The young are so dumb.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.”
― Harlan Coben, The Innocent

“So basically your plan is to flail about helplessly.”
― Harlan Coben, Drop Shot

“Kids don’t do what their parents say-they do what they see their parents do. So who was to blame here?”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“But sometimes, maybe most times, it isn't that clear. It is dark and you are near the edge of a cliff, but you're moving slowly, not sure which direction you're heading in. Your steps are tentative but they are still blind in the night. You don't realize how close you are to the edge, how the soft earth could give away, how you could just slip a bit and suddenly plunge into the dark.”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“There is the old catch-22 line that a mentally unstable person can't know, as per their illness, that they are unstable. But that was wrong. You can and do have the insight to see your own crazy.”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“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.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“So basically, that entire theory is blown to hell."
Not basically," Win corrected. "Entirely.”
― Harlan Coben, Fade Away

“You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“You bring your own weather to the picnic.”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers." She slapped my back. "Welcome to high school.”
― Harlan Coben, Shelter

“There should have been a dark whisper in the wind. Or maybe a deep chill in the bone. Something. An ethereal song only Elizabeth or I could hear. A tightness in the air. Some textbook premonition. There are misfortunes we almost expect in life—what happened to my parents, for example—and then there are other dark moments, moments of sudden violence that alter everything. There was my life before the tragedy. There is my life now. The two have very little in common.”
― Harlan Coben, Tell No One

“Man plans, God laughs”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“It's not the dead even. They're gone. Nothing you can do about that. It's what's left behind - the echo. These woods you're walking through. There are some old timers who think a sound echoes here forever. Makes sense when you think about it. That Billingham kid. I'm sure he screamed. He screams, it echoes, just bounces back and forth, the sound getting smaller and smaller, but never entirely disappearing. Like a part of his is still calling out, even now.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“Esperanza's side had so many colors, Crayola sent a scout.”
― Harlan Coben

“I used to wonder why Lucy liked those songs so much. You know what I mean? She sits in the dark and listens and cries. Music does that to her...I didn't understand for a long time. But I do now. 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.”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“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.”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“It was one lesson he never forgot.You don't sit back when you or a loved one is being assaulted.And you don't act like the goverment with their "proportional responses" and all that nonsense.If someone hurts you,mercy and pity must be put aside,You eliminate the enemy.You scorch the earth.”
― Harlan Coben, Tell No One / Gone For Good

“There is a certain fate to the universe and a certain randomness.”
― Harlan Coben, Hold Tight

“You bring your own weather to the picnick.”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“Fame is more addictive than crack. Adults who lose fame--one-hit wonders, for example--usually tailspin into depression, though they try to act like they're above it. They don't want to admit the truth. Their whole life is a lie, a desperate scramble for another dose of that most potent of drugs. Fame”
― Harlan Coben, No Second Chance

“Right now, even though he'd been dead for years, she wanted to collapse in her father's big arms and hear him tell her that everything would be all right. Do we ever outgrow that need?”
― Harlan Coben, Caught

“I'm not sure we should get camera phones, that's all."

She hit the remote and the car doors unlocked. She reached for the door handle. Matt hesitated.

Olivia looked at him.

"What?" he asked.

"If we both get camera phones," Olivia said, "I could send you nuddies when you're at work."

Matt opened the door. "Verizon on Sprint?"

from The Innocent”
― Harlan Coben

“You live among this ridiculous wealth and you get lost. You worry about nonsense like spirituality and inner health and satisfaction and relationships.You have no idea what it is like to starve, to watch yourself turn to bones.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“There was an old joke about being left on a deserted island with an editor. You are starving. All you have left is a glass of orange juice. Days pass. You are near death. You are about to drink the juice when the editor grabs the glass from your hand and pees into it. You look at him, stunned . "There," the editor says, handing you the glass. "It just needed a little tweaking.”
― Harlan Coben, Promise Me

“In sum," Midlife said, giving the room his best you-the-jury baritone, "Our defense will be...?" He looked to Matt for the answer/
"Blame the other guy," Matt said.
"Which other guy?"
"Yes."
"Huh?"
"We blame whoever we can," Matt said. "The CFO, the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter-Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled."
"Isn't that contradictory?" Midlife asked, folding his hands and lowering his eyebrows. "Claiming both malice and mistakes?" He stopped, looked up, smiled, nodded. Malice and mistakes. Midlife liked the way that sounded.
"We're looking to confuse," Matt said. "You blame enough people, nothing sticks. The jury end up knowing something went wrong but you don't know where to place the blame. We throw facts and figures at them. We bring up every possible mistake, every uncrossed t and dotted i. We act like discrepancy is a huge deal, even if it's not. We are skeptical of EVERYONE.”
― Harlan Coben

“I look at her, then at Tasha, and I feel the wondrous blend of bliss and fear. They--bliss and fear--are constant companions. Rarely does one venture out without the other.”
― Harlan Coben, No Second Chance

“I wish i could tell you that through the tragedy i mined some undiscovered, life-altering absolute that i could pass on to you.I didn't.The cliches apply-people are what count,life is precious,materialism is over rated, and the little things matter,live in the moment-and i can repeat them to you ad nauseam.you might listen, but you won't internalize.Tragedy hammers it hm.Tragedy etches into your soul.You might not be happier.But you will be better.”
― Harlan Coben, Tell No One

“I read Parker's Spenser series in college. When it comes to detective novels, 90 percent of us admit he's an influence, and the rest of us lie about it.”
― Harlan Coben

“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.”
― Harlan Coben, Deal Breaker

“Her voice was polished with a hint of a New England-boarding-school accent that shouted refinement over geographic locale. I was trying not to stare. She saw that and smiled a little. I don't want to sound like some kind of pervert because it wasn't like that. Femal beauty gets to me. I don't think I'm alone in that. It gets to me like a work of art gets to me. It gets to me like a Rembrandt or Michelangelo. It gets to me like night views of Paris or when the sun rises on the Grand Canyon or sets in the turquoise Arizona sky. My thoughts were not illicit. Ther were, I self-rationalized, rather artistic.”
― Harlan Coben, The Woods

“Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay”
― Harlan Coben, Shelter

“Myron lay sprawled next to a knee-knockingly gorgeous brunette clad only in a Class-B-felony bikini, a tropical drink sans umbrella in one hand, the aqua clear Caribbean water lapping at his feet, the sand a dazzling white powder, the sky a pure blue that could only be God's blank canvas, the sun a soothing and rich as a Swedish masseur with a snifter of cognac, and he was intensely miserable.”
― Harlan Coben, The Final Detail

“The missing girl—there had been unceasing news reports, always flashing to that achingly ordinary school portrait of the vanished teen, you know the one, with the rainbow-swirl background, the girl's hair too straight, her smile too self-conscious, then a quick cut to the worried parents on the front lawn, microphones surrounding them, Mom silently tearful, Dad reading a statement with quivering lip—that girl, that missing girl had just walked past Edna Skylar.”
― Harlan Coben, Promise Me

“An hour before his world exploded like a ripe tomato under a stiletto heel, Myron bit into a fresh pastry that tasted suspiciously like urinal cake.”
― Harlan Coben, Darkest Fear