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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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Harlan Coben
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Quite
Maybe
Littles
Little
Closer
Writing
Mountain
Trying
Reach
Never
General
Like
Novel

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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You want this so badly—this second chance, this chance at real redemption—that you can’t see the truth.
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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.
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The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time.
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In short, the satisfaction of creating, not necessarily the process, always lifts my heart.
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Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return.
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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.
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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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I still try to make the next book my best book. I want to grip and move you in unexpected ways.
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I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring.
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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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When you like something and you're pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don't ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it.
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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.
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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.
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You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.
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Only bad writers think they're good.
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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.
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Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something
Harlan Coben