Quote

A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.

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
Narratives
Trial
Competing
Trials
Narrative
Attention
Two

More quotes by 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
The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
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
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
Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return.
Harlan Coben
Image
It was one lesson he never forgot.You don't sit back when you or a loved one is being assaulted.And you don't act like the goverment with their proportional responses and all that nonsense.If someone hurts you,mercy and pity must be put aside,You eliminate the enemy.You scorch the earth.
Harlan Coben
Image
Painful memories didn't just ease back in-they shoved the door open hard, all of them and all at once
Harlan Coben
Image
...better to have loved and lost bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.
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
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
Image
I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.
Harlan Coben
Image
This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.
Harlan Coben
Image
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
Image
William Goldman's Marathon Man was a novel that taught me about suspense. I was maybe 16 years old when I read it and I remember thinking, You could put a gun to my head and I wouldn't put this book down. I loved that feeling - and want to give it others.
Harlan Coben
Image
That’s the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song
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
Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something
Harlan Coben