Top 300 Harlan Coben Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.”

— Harlan Coben

152. “With choice comes guilt. No escaping it.”

— Harlan Coben

153. “The young family who’d moved into the Miller home had gotten rid of the Millers’ trademark overflowing flower boxes. The new owners of the Davis place had ripped out those wonderful shrubs Bob Davis had worked on every weekend. It all reminded Myron of an invading army ripping down the flags of the conquered.”

— Harlan Coben

154. “The world is nothing but a bunch of thin lines separating what we think are extremes.”

— Harlan Coben

155. “People had long memories. No matter how many years passed, he would always be the subject of whispers and innuendos.”

— Harlan Coben

156. “The pain flooded in again. It was always there, of course. Through the shaking hands and slapping of the backs, the grief stayed by his side, tapping Griffin on the shoulder, whispering in his ear, reminding him that they were partners for life.”

— Harlan Coben

157. “The eyebrows were his most prominent feature – unusually thick and angry and constantly undulating.”

— Harlan Coben

158. “The preparation for building a series of thrillers based on a single character is kind of like the preparation for becoming a parent: The best part is the idea – wink, wink.”

— Harlan Coben

159. “We humans can’t see straight. We are always biased. We always protect our own interests.”

— Harlan Coben

160. “And bad stays. Bad doesn’t go away. You bury bad, it digs itself out. You throw bad in the middle of the ocean, it comes back at you like a tidal wave.”

— Harlan Coben

161. “As a soldier, you don’t stand at attention because it looks nice. You stand at attention because, on some level, it either gives you strength or, just as important, makes you appear stronger to both your comrades and enemies.”

— Harlan Coben

162. “There are other single parents in town, mostly divorced mothers, but I get a ton of slack. If I forget to write a note or pick up my daughter late or leave her lunch on the counter, the other mothers or the staff in the school office chip in and help. They think my male helplessness is cute. When a single mother does any of those things, she is neglectful and on the receiving end of the superior moms’ scorn.”

— Harlan Coben

163. “I turned to Otto. “Why the hell did you hit him like that?” Otto looked back at me with eyes that sent a chill straight through my heart. They were lifeless eyes, not the slightest hint of light behind them. It was as though I were looking into the eyes of an inanimate object – the eyes of an end table, maybe, or a cardboard box. From.”

— Harlan Coben

164. “When he finished telling her about the kidnapping, Esperanza’s first words were an incredulous, “Win has a mother?” “Yep.” Pause. “There goes my spawned-from-a-satanic-egg theory.”

— Harlan Coben

165. “His voice not only dripped sarcasm but seemed to have spent days marinated in it: “How noble.” “Objection!”

— Harlan Coben

166. “They’re politicians,’ Win said. ‘They’d lie and evade if you asked them what they had for breakfast.”

— Harlan Coben

167. “The boys wore helmets that looked too big on their heads, like the Great Gazoo on The Flintstones, and it was nearly impossible to tell which kid was which.”

— Harlan Coben

168. “A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.”

— Harlan Coben

169. “Certain problems cannot be solved if you are constantly entertained and distracted.”

— Harlan Coben

170. “I remember everything about her. The way she looked. The way she smelled. The way she’d come home from her job so tired she could barely put her feet up. I don’t think I’ve talked about her five times in the past twenty years. But I think about her every day. I think about why she gave me up. And I think about why I still miss her.”

— Harlan Coben

171. “At one time, this might have been a nice area, but now the neighborhood looked like a man who’d lost his job and stopped bathing.”

— Harlan Coben

172. “He loved her. She loved him. Simple but there you have it. You have careers and you raise kids and there are victories and defeats and you just sort of coast along, living your life, the days long. The years short, and then every once in a while, you remember to pull up and look at your partner, your life partner, really look at the one who travels down the lonely road right by your side, and you realize how much you are in this together.”

— Harlan Coben

173. “Well now everything dies, baby that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back. – Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City.”

— Harlan Coben

174. “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

175. “That’s the problem with falling in love. It makes you start talking like a bad country song.”

— Harlan Coben

176. “Sitting for an hour without reading material meant he had to think.”

— Harlan Coben

177. “Two people, a man and your ex, Maura, are in the car,” Reynolds says. “Officer Canton pulls them over for a DUI. Something spooks them. They panic, shoot Officer Canton twice in the back of the head, take off.”

— Harlan Coben

178. “Don’t go playing hero,” he said. “Just find out if he’s there. Something gets out of hand, you get out of there pronto.” “Okay.” “And we should have a code word. Something you say if you need me.” Esperanza nodded, feigning seriousness. “If I say the words premature ejaculation, it means I want you to come.”

— Harlan Coben

179. “The world doesn’t give even the slightest damn about us or our petty problems.”

— Harlan Coben

180. “He sounded genuine, but Myron knew that meant nothing. People were amazing liars.”

— Harlan Coben

181. “The decor was nice in a fake-rustic, Martha Stewart sort of way. The furniture was what they called “simple country” where the look was indeed simple and the price outrageous. Lots of pines and wickers and antiques and dry flowers. The smell of potpourri was strong and cloying. They.”

— Harlan Coben

182. “One time Clu tried to explain it to me,” Enos continued. “‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you don’t want to escape the world; sometimes you want to escape yourself.’ ” He cocked his head. “Do you believe that?” “Not really,” Myron said. “Like a lot of cute phrases, it sounds good. But it also sounds like a load of self-rationalization.”

— Harlan Coben

183. “War is never a meritocracy for the casualties.”

— Harlan Coben

184. “This is how detecting works. You keep going even if what you’re doing seems like a momentous waste of time and energy.”

— Harlan Coben

185. “They watched a repeat of Frasier on Channel 11. The show was starting to grow on them both.”

— Harlan Coben

186. “They think my male helplessness is cute. When a single mother does any of those things, she is neglectful and on the receiving end of the superior moms’ scorn.”

— Harlan Coben

187. “Purging was part of his grieving process –.”

— Harlan Coben

188. “He truly believed that no one could love him, and no matter who you are, that hurts. It made you insecure. It made you want to hide and build fences.”

— Harlan Coben

189. “Feeding teenage boys was like filling a bathtub with a grapefruit spoon.”

— Harlan Coben

190. “Diamonte shook his head again. He reached down and put his hand on his right boot. Myron had seen him do this before. He liked to sort of pet the boot. Myron had no idea why. Maybe he found the feel of snakeskin soothing. Reminiscent of the womb.”

— Harlan Coben

191. “I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring.”

— Harlan Coben

192. “Myron remembered something his father once told him: People have an amazing capacity to mess up their own lives.”

— Harlan Coben

193. “When Myron was ten years old, his father had taken him and his younger brother, Brad, to a game. Brad was five at the time. Dad had secured.”

— Harlan Coben

194. “The old saw about bad news traveling fast has never been truer than in the age of the Internet.”

— Harlan Coben

195. “I’m sorry,” my dead wife mouthed.”

— Harlan Coben

196. “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

197. “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

198. “I’d rather read than relax. I’d rather keep the mind engaged.”

— Harlan Coben

199. “Check out the comments underneath,” Augie says. I move the cursor down. “There are over fifty thousand of them.” “Just click ‘Top Comments’ and read a few.” I do as he asks. And as always when reading a comments section, my faith in humanity plummets:.”

— Harlan Coben

200. “The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time. I don’t do too many notes. I keep it mostly in my head. I usually start writing a new book around January, and it’s due October 1.”

— Harlan Coben