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Only bad writers think they're good.

Harlan Coben

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Harlan Coben
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Good
Think
Thinking
Writers

More quotes by Harlan Coben

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For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do?It takes so much to hold on to hate—you lose your grip on what's important, you know?
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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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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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 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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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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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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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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Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return.
Harlan Coben
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I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good.
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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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
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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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...better to have loved and lost bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.
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 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.
Harlan Coben
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The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter.
Harlan Coben
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I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.
Harlan Coben
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Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay
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