Harlan Coben quotes - page 3

Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement. (Harlan Coben)
When I was seventeen, I worked as a counsellor at a co-ed sleep-away camp for eight weeks. I loved it but it could be harrowing - it was far too much responsibility for someone my age. View quote
Harlan Coben
The preparation for building a series of thrillers based on a single character is kind of like the preparation for becoming a parent: The best part is the idea - wink, wink. View quote
Harlan Coben
Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher. View quote
Harlan Coben
Man plans. God laughs. View quote
Harlan Coben
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. View quote
Harlan Coben
I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain. View quote
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. View quote
Harlan Coben
The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter. View quote
Harlan Coben
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. View quote
Harlan Coben
I don't regret the things I've done. I regret the things I didn't do when I had the chance. (Harlan Coben)
My house has too many distractions. There's the email. There's checking my Amazon ranking. I know I'm the only author who's ever done that, ever. There's the fax. Too many distractions. I like to go out and write. View quote
Harlan Coben
We're called New Jersey but we're actually the suburbs of New York. View quote
Harlan Coben
I don't find any real rivalries with crime and thriller writers anyway. That might sound a little Pollyanna, but for the most part the writers I compete with, if you want to use that word, it's a pretty friendly rivalry. I think we all realise that the boat rises and sinks together. View quote
Harlan Coben
I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction. View quote
Harlan Coben
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 want to stir the pulse, yes, but also to stir the heart. I hope 'The Woods' does that. View quote
Harlan Coben
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. View quote
Harlan Coben
Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else. View quote
Harlan Coben
Sometimes even when the book is over I don't know who's good and who's bad. It's really more interesting, I think, to write about gray characters than it is to write about black and white. View quote
Harlan Coben
That's what a good crime novelist - any good novelist - should do with you: play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight. View quote
Harlan Coben
You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left, a back without a front - or a happy without a sad. (Harlan Coben)
More than once, I've wished my real life had a delete key. View quote
Harlan Coben
I'm thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me. View quote
Harlan Coben
A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made. View quote
Harlan Coben
Writers always say, 'I always knew I wanted to be a writer; when I was a three-month-old foetus a pen formed in my hand and I began to scratch my first story on the inside of my mother's womb.' I started later, in my early twenties. View quote
Harlan Coben