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We all think that we are uniquely complex, that no one can see what we are thinking - yet we also believe that we have the rare ability to read others. This fascinates me at the moment.

Harlan Coben

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Harlan Coben
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: January 4
Author
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Moment
Moments
Fascinates
Others
Uniquely
Also
Rare
Believe
Complexes
Think
Complex
Thinking
Ability
Read

More quotes by 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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I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring.
Harlan Coben
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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.
Harlan Coben
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Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers. She slapped my back. Welcome to high school.
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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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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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
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Only bad writers think they're good.
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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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
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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 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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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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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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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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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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Sometimes the loudest cries for help are silent.
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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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
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...better to have loved and lost bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.
Harlan Coben