Harlan Coben

“A friend once told Megan that we are always seventeen years old, waiting for our lives to begin. More than ever, clutching to this man, Megan understood that.”

“I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, I love to fool you a third time. And just when you think it's all over, I have what I call that Carrie hand-out-of-the-grave moment. Just when you think it's all over, I'm going to hit you with just one more. I can't help myself.”

“Tragedy is a hell of a teacher. It's much too strict, but it's a hell of a teacher.”

“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.”

“When you like something and you're pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don't ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it.”

“It's not the dead even. They're gone. Nothing you can do about that. It's what's left behind - the echo. These woods you're walking through. There are some old timers who think a sound echoes here forever. Makes sense when you think about it. That Billingham kid. I'm sure he screamed. He screams, it echoes, just bounces back and forth, the sound getting smaller and smaller, but never entirely disappearing. Like a part of his is still calling out, even now.”

“A writer without a reader doesn't exist.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.”

“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.”

“You live among this ridiculous wealth and you get lost. You worry about nonsense like spirituality and inner health and satisfaction and relationships.You have no idea what it is like to starve, to watch yourself turn to bones.”

“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.”

“There are few times that I feel more at peace, more in tune, more Zen, if you will, than when I force myself to unplug.”

“'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.”

“A dancer on break approached him. She smiled. Each tooth was angled in a different direction, as if her mouth were the masterwork of a mad orthodontist. "Hi," she said. "Hi." "You're really cute." "I don't have any money."She spun and walked away. Ah, romance.”

“We're called New Jersey but we're actually the suburbs of New York.”

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

“Getting into a fight with a popular senior. Pissing off a school teacher and the local chief of police. Hanging with two major-league losers." She slapped my back. "Welcome to high school.”