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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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Harlan Coben
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Giving
Toys
Alternative
Alternatives
Room
Rooms
Answers
Give
Wiggle
Find
Desperation

More quotes by Harlan Coben

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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
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Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return.
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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I don't necessarily love the sports per se, I love the stories behind them. Also in a kind of perverse way I like to study what it does to us, why we care so much. It's caring about something that's utterly meaningless.
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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Being a parent is not for the faint of heart. I may joke about knowing fear, but the fact is, the first time I ever knew real fear was the day Charlotte, my first child, was born. Suddenly there is someone in the world you care about more than anything.
Harlan Coben
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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.
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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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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Im 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.
Harlan Coben
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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
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That’s the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song
Harlan Coben
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The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn't hard to find, just hard to like - she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her.
Harlan Coben
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A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.
Harlan Coben
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You bring your own weather to the picnic.
Harlan Coben
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I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.
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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A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made.
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.
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