Harlan Coben – 22 Quotes

22 Quotes by Harlan Coben

When I was seventeen, I worked as a counsellor at a co-ed sleep-away camp for eight weeks. I loved it but it could be harrowing – it was far too much responsibility for someone my age.

– Harlan Coben

I wrote seven Myron Bolitar novels in a row, and I never want to write a Myron book where he just solves a crime. Every one of them I want to be personal, and I want him to grow and change. The problem with that is, it makes the series limited, you can’t write a series where a guy is always going through some kind of crisis.

– Harlan Coben

Losing my parents was the most crushing thing that ever happened to me. I lost my dad when I was 26, and it changed my life entirely.

– Harlan Coben

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

No characters in ‘Stay Close,’ including the leads, are black and white. I want them to be grey. I think that makes for a much more interesting reading experience, something that will stay with you a little bit longer.

– Harlan Coben

Frankly I’m fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else.

– Harlan Coben

If I’m not writing well, I’m not happy. If I’m not spending enough time with my family, I’m not happy. If I’m not connecting to friends or if I don’t work out enough… You get the point. Everything has to be balanced. Nothing should be an extreme.

– Harlan Coben

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

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

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

‘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

I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness.

– Harlan Coben

I can write pretty much anywhere if you give me time and some quiet. The home is not usually the best place because I have four children. It’s usually pandemonium around here!

– Harlan Coben

Hope can be the most wonderful thing in the world or it can crush your heart like an eggshell.

– Harlan Coben

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

I’d never had money growing up, and it’s never been that important to me, except maybe to take our kids on a nice vacation or something like that.

– Harlan Coben

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

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

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

I’m not a big sports fan.

– Harlan Coben

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

– Harlan Coben

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

– Harlan Coben