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" The most annoying and full-of-crap thing a writer says is, 'I write only for myself, I don't care if anyone reads it.' A writer without a reader doesn't exist. "

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" And I love the twist. I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, and on the very last page, quite often - very last paragraph sometimes - I like to just play with your perception one more time in a way that makes everything that came before just a little bit different. "

Harlan Coben

Fool

Play

Perception

" Sometimes even when the book is over I don't know who's good and who's bad. It's really more interesting, I think, to write about gray characters than it is to write about black and white. "

" I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction. "

" '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. "

" 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. "

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

" I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good. "

Harlan Coben

Insecurity

Always

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

" 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

Vacation

Growing Up

" 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. "

" I'm not a big sports fan. "

" I'm not a fan of self-help books - how can something be 'self-help' if the book itself is purportedly helping you? "

" Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing. "

Harlan Coben

Creating

Only

" That's what a good crime novelist - any good novelist - should do with you: play with your perceptions while showing you everything in plain sight. "

" A writer without a reader doesn't exist. "

" Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you're going to get at it. "

" I never bought the excuse of not having time to write. If you really want to do it, you're either going to find those hours or eventually decide not to be a writer. "

" I would never write a memoir, because it would be too boring. "

" 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. "

" Writing isn't about the process. It is about creating. The joy comes not from the process but from the creation. "

" 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. "

" If I don't write, I hate myself. Simple as that. My life is out of balance. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Children learn much more from how you act than from what you tell them. There are times this worries me - we parents are rarely the role models we want to be. True for life. True for driving. "

" 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. "

" 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. "