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" 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. "
Harlan Coben
Quality
Better
You
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" I love stories. When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head. "
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" I'm not a big sports fan. "
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" There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation. "
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" I remember the days of sitting at book signings, playing with my pen when no one would come, and still I even then thought I was living the dream, because I had a book out. "
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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. "
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" 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. "
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" We're called New Jersey but we're actually the suburbs of New York. "
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" I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain. "
Harlan Coben
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" A writer without a reader doesn't exist. "
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" 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
Up
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" 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
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" I've never chased the dollar, I've always chased the reader's heart. I love having more readers. The more people who read it, the more thrilled I am. "
Harlan Coben
People
Love
I Am
" I like to see the difference between good and evil as kind of like the foul line at a baseball game. It's very thin, it's made of something very flimsy like lime, and if you cross it, it really starts to blur where fair becomes foul and foul becomes fair. "
Harlan Coben
Baseball
Good And Evil
Good
" Make no mistake, adolescence is a war. No one gets out unscathed. "
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Make
Mistake
Out
" 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. "
Harlan Coben
Driving
Children
Parents
" 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
Vacation
Hotel
Live
" The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn't know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman's 'Marathon Man.' That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me. "
Harlan Coben
Me
Marathon
Father
" When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head. "
Harlan Coben
Sitting
You
Fire
" 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
Reading
Black And White
Experience
" 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. "
Harlan Coben
Dream
Live
Life
" I'm a little bit of a control freak. "
Harlan Coben
Control
Little
Freak
" Only bad writers think they're good. "
Harlan Coben
Only
Bad
Good
" The muse is not an angelic voice that sits on your shoulder and sings sweetly. The muse is the most annoying whine. The muse isn't hard to find, just hard to like - she follows you everywhere, tapping you on the shoulder, demanding that you stop doing whatever else you might be doing and pay attention to her. "
Harlan Coben
You
She
Doing
" 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
" 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
Pen
Mother
Early
" 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
Fear
Child
World
" 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
Life
Romantic
Work
" I'm 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
Always
Realize
Truth
" 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
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Back
You
" 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
Think
Saying
Thought