The collection / 44 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1990 AD

There should have been a dark whisper in the wind. Or maybe a deep chill in the bone. Something. An ethereal song only Elizabeth or I could hear. A tightness in the air. Some textbook premonition. There are misfortunes we almost expect in life—what happened to my parents, for example—and then there are other dark moments, moments of sudden violence that alter everything. There was my life before the tragedy. There is my life now. The two have very little in common.

Harlan Coben / quote

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02c. 1990 AD

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 / quote

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03c. 1990 AD

Myron lay sprawled next to a knee-knockingly gorgeous brunette clad only in a Class-B-felony bikini, a tropical drink sans umbrella in one hand, the aqua clear Caribbean water lapping at his feet, the sand a dazzling white powder, the sky a pure blue that could only be God's blank canvas, the sun a soothing and rich as a Swedish masseur with a snifter of cognac, and he was intensely miserable.

Harlan Coben / quote

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04c. 1990 AD

The missing girl—there had been unceasing news reports, always flashing to that achingly ordinary school portrait of the vanished teen, you know the one, with the rainbow-swirl background, the girl's hair too straight, her smile too self-conscious, then a quick cut to the worried parents on the front lawn, microphones surrounding them, Mom silently tearful, Dad reading a statement with quivering lip—that girl, that missing girl had just walked past Edna Skylar.

Harlan Coben / quote

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05c. 1990 AD

He tried to read, but the words swam in front of his eyes in meaningless waves. He put on the television. Nick at Nite, the cultural equivalent of aerosol cheese.

Harlan Coben / quote

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06c. 1990 AD

You want to put people in neat categories, make them monsters or angels, but it almost never works that way. You work in the gray and frankly that kinda sucks. The extremes are so much easier.

Harlan Coben / quote

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07c. 1990 AD

I kept glancing at her animated face, scrunched up as though imitating an adult. I got hit with that overwhelming feeling. It sneaked up on me. Parents get it from time to time. You are looking at your child and it is an ordinary moment, not like they are onstage or hitting a winning shop, just sitting there, and you look at them and you know that they are your whole life and that moves you and scares you and makes you want to stop time.

Harlan Coben / quote

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08c. 1990 AD

We move to the dance floor. We face each other. She puts one hand on my shoulder and the other hand in mine. We start to dance. At some point Ema moves closer. She rests her head on my shoulder.I barely move. I barely breath.I just want this moment to last.

Harlan Coben / quote

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09c. 1990 AD

The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to.

Harlan Coben / quote

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10c. 1990 AD

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 / quote

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11c. 1990 AD

Make no mistake, adolescence is a war. No one gets out unscathed.

Harlan Coben / quote

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12c. 1990 AD

I'm not a big sports fan.

Harlan Coben / quote

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13c. 1990 AD

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 / quote

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14c. 1990 AD

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 / quote

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15c. 1990 AD

Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher.

Harlan Coben / quote

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16c. 1990 AD

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 / quote

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17c. 1990 AD

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 / quote

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18c. 1990 AD

'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won't work.

Harlan Coben / quote

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19c. 1990 AD

You can't have an up without a down, a right without a left, a back without a front - or a happy without a sad.

Harlan Coben / quote

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20c. 1990 AD

The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way, but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work.

Harlan Coben / quote

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