Harlan Coben

“אתם עשויים להתפתות לעזור למאמן בובי באיזה שהוא שלב, זאת תהיה טעות ענקית. הראשון מכם שיעשה אפילו צעד קטן לכיוון בובי ומיירון, יאושפז בבית חולים. שימו לב שלא אמרתי ייעצר, ייפגע או אפילו יינזק, אמרתי יאושפז.”

“וין טפח על כתפו של האיש. 'אתה תשתוק ברגע זה'. האב נפנה אל וין, וראה את המראה המלוקק ופני החרסינה. הוא עמד לנחור בבוז ולהגיב בחריפות, אבל דבר מה – ככל הנראה משהו שקשור ליצר הישרדות בסיס וחייתי – גרם לו לשנות את דעתו ולחזור בו. עיניו נתקלו בחומת הקרל הכחולה בעיניו של וין הוא השפיל את ראשו ואמר, 'כן מצטער, זה לא היה במקום'.”

“הבעת פניו של וין נראתה תמיד יהירה ומתנשאת. אנשים הביטו בו וראו סנוב אליטיסט שבא ממשפחה עשירה ומיוחסת. רוב הזמן הם צדקו. אבל כשהם טעו, הטעות הזאת הייתה עלולה לעלות להם ביוקר. לפעמים אפילו בחייהם.”

“נוקיה או מוטורולה?”

“אני רק לא חושב שאנחנו צריכים טלפון- מצלמה, זה הכל.”

“כשלורן למדה בסנט מרגרט, האם קטרין לבשה "מדי" נזירה מלאים. כעת היא הייתה חנוטה במשהו דתי בלי ספק, אבל הרבה יותר יומיומי. התשובה הנזירית לאפנת 'בננה רפבליק', שיערה לורן.”

“I wish i could tell you that through the tragedy i mined some undiscovered, life-altering absolute that i could pass on to you.I didn't.The cliches apply-people are what count,life is precious,materialism is over rated, and the little things matter,live in the moment-and i can repeat them to you ad nauseam.you might listen, but you won't internalize.Tragedy hammers it hm.Tragedy etches into your soul.You might not be happier.But you will be better.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In sum," Midlife said, giving the room his best you-the-jury baritone, "Our defense will be...?" He looked to Matt for the answer/"Blame the other guy," Matt said."Which other guy?""Yes.""Huh?""We blame whoever we can," Matt said. "The CFO, the COO, the C Choose-Your-Favorite-Two-Letter-Combination, the accounting firm, the banks, the board, the lower-level employees. We claim some of them are crooks. We claim some of them made honest mistakes that steamrolled.""Isn't that contradictory?" Midlife asked, folding his hands and lowering his eyebrows. "Claiming both malice and mistakes?" He stopped, looked up, smiled, nodded. Malice and mistakes. Midlife liked the way that sounded."We're looking to confuse," Matt said. "You blame enough people, nothing sticks. The jury end up knowing something went wrong but you don't know where to place the blame. We throw facts and figures at them. We bring up every possible mistake, every uncrossed t and dotted i. We act like discrepancy is a huge deal, even if it's not. We are skeptical of EVERYONE.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“My house has too many distractions. There's the email. There's checking my Amazon ranking. I know I'm the only author who's ever done that, ever. There's the fax. Too many distractions. I like to go out and write.”

“You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!'”

“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.”

“I'm not a big sports fan.”

“A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made.”

“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.”

“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.”