Top 45 Harlan Coben Quotes

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

I’m not a fan of self-help books – how can something be ‘self-help’ if the book itself is purportedly helping you?

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.

Hope can be the most wonderful thing in the world or it can crush your heart like an eggshell.

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.

Only bad writers think they’re good.

I’m 48 years old, not a kid anymore by any definition, but here is a universal truth that every adult at some point will realize: We are all always 17 years old, waiting for our lives to begin.

I like to go out and write. So I’ll often go to a Starbucks or a local coffee bar, and I’ll sit there and I’ll write. I can write pretty much anywhere.

The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman’s ‘Marathon Man.’ That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me.

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.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain.

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.

A writer without a reader doesn’t exist.

I like to see the difference between good and evil as kind of like the foul line at a baseball game. It’s very thin, it’s made of something very flimsy like lime, and if you cross it, it really starts to blur where fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair.

‘Caught’ is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present – who should be and who shouldn’t be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won’t work.

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.

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.

There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.

This is the price you pay for having a great father. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments – and you get the tears at the end, too.

I’m not a big sports fan.

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

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.

In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart.

I am, after all, a thriller writer. I routinely delve into the darkest chambers of the human heart. I’ve written about murder, kidnapping, depravity, horror, violence, and disfigurement.

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.

The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling – that you’d take on vacation and rather than going out, you’d read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that’s what readers are responding to.

I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work. But the third is desperation. I’m not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.

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.

More than once, I’ve wished my real life had a delete key.

I’m not very happy idle.

The most annoying and full-of-crap thing a writer says is, ‘I write only for myself, I don’t care if anyone reads it.’ A writer without a reader doesn’t exist.

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.

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

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers ‘puzzles.’ I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It’s on the box. And even if I don’t, if it’s a 5,000-piece puzzle of the ‘Mona Lisa’, it’s not like I put the last piece in and go, ‘I had no idea it’s the ‘Mona Lisa’!’

I’m the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.

I pretty much only wear Lilly Pulitzer ties because my best friend owns the company.

Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you’re going to get at it.

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.

Children learn much more from how you act than from what you tell them. There are times this worries me – we parents are rarely the role models we want to be. True for life. True for driving.

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.

No characters in ‘Stay Close,’ including the leads, are black and white. I want them to be grey. I think that makes for a much more interesting reading experience, something that will stay with you a little bit longer.

I’m thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me.

Make no mistake, adolescence is a war. No one gets out unscathed.

When you like something and you’re pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don’t ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it.