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I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

Harlan Coben

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Harlan Coben
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Stress
Happiness
True
Children
Trying
Something
Never
Buying
Leads

More quotes by Harlan Coben

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You want this so badly—this second chance, this chance at real redemption—that you can’t see the truth.
Harlan Coben
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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
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A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.
Harlan Coben
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Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else.
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Only bad writers think they're good.
Harlan Coben
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There are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.
Harlan Coben
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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.
Harlan Coben
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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
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What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia, family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.
Harlan Coben
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Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something
Harlan Coben
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Writing a novel in general is like trying to reach a mountain top you'll never quite reach - so you try again and maybe get a little closer.
Harlan Coben
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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
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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.
Harlan Coben
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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.
Harlan Coben
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In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.
Harlan Coben
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I still try to make the next book my best book. I want to grip and move you in unexpected ways.
Harlan Coben
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...desperation can toy with you and if you give desperation any wiggle room, it will find alternative answers
Harlan Coben
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In the end, we know what makes us happy. We also know what makes us unhappy. That's the irony. We know and yet we still mess it up. That's part of the human condition, no, and why we need to work on it.
Harlan Coben
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You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.
Harlan Coben
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In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart.
Harlan Coben