Quote

You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.

Harlan Coben

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Harlan Coben
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Worry
Happiness
Fulfilment
Starving

More quotes by Harlan Coben

Image
If I had, say, a tall, amateur male lead living on the campus of a rural college (Six Years), the next book might feature a short, cop who lives in the heart of Manhattan (Missing You).
Harlan Coben
Image
The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.
Harlan Coben
Image
Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something
Harlan Coben
Image
I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good.
Harlan Coben
Image
What I love about the thriller form is that it makes you write a story. You can't get lost in your own genius, which is a dangerous place for writers. You don't want to ever get complacent. If a book starts going too well, I usually know there's a problem. I need to struggle. I need that self-doubt. I need to think it's not the best thing ever.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
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.
Harlan Coben
Image
There's always a price you pay when you lie. Once you introduce a lie into a relationship, even for the best of intentions, it is always there. Whenever you’re with that person again, that lie is in the room too. It sits on your shoulder. Good lie or bad lie, it's in the room with you forever now. It's your constant companion.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I still try to make the next book my best book. I want to grip and move you in unexpected ways.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Harlan Coben
Image
I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.
Harlan Coben