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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.

-Harlan Coben

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I Always Say Three

Harlan Coben

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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.

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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.

We're Called New Jersey But We're Actually The Suburbs Of New York.

I Always Think The Insecurity Is Going To Go Away, But It's Always There. Only Bad Writers Think They're Good.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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..."better To Have Loved And Lost" Bullshit. Don't Show Me Paradise And Then Burn It Down.

This Was A Place Where Tattoos Outnumbered Teeth.

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Hope Is Cruel. Hope Reminds Me Of What Almost Was. Hope Makes The Physical Ache Return.

I'm The Jerry Lewis Of Crime Fiction.

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.

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.

I Don't Find Any Real Rivalries With Crime And Thriller Writers Anyway. That Might Sound A Little Pollyanna, But For The Most Part The Writers I Compete With, If You Want To Use That Word, It's A Pretty Friendly Rivalry. I Think We All Realise That The Boat Rises And Sinks Together.

There Are Three Things That Make A Person A Writer: Inspiration, Perspiration And Desperation.

In Short, The Satisfaction Of Creating, Not Necessarily The Process, Always Lifts My Heart.

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'!'

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.

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You Bring Your Own Weather To The Picnic.

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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.

I Still Try To Make The "next" Book My "best" Book. I Want To Grip And Move You In Unexpected Ways.

Sometimes Even When The Book Is Over I Dont Know Whos Good And Whos Bad. Its Really More Interesting, I Think, To Write About Gray Characters Than It Is To Write About Black And White.

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Sometimes The Loudest Cries For Help Are Silent.

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Years Fly By, But The Heart Stays In The Same Place.

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.

Black And White

No, I Don’t Live In Heartache. I Don’t Cry Myself To Sleep Or Any Of That. I Am, I Tell Myself, Over It. But I Do Feel A Void, Icky As That Sounds. And—like It Or Not—i Still Think About Her Every Single Day.

I Would Never Write A Memoir, Because It Would Be Too Boring.

...desperation Can Toy With You And If You Give Desperation Any Wiggle Room, It Will Find Alternative Answers

That’s The Problem With Falling In Love. It Makes You Start Talking Like A Bad Country Song

Falling In Love

I Love To Make Even Villains People You Can Relate To. When You Find Out Who Did It, I Think You Almost Like The Person, Which Is Not Easy To Do.

I Try To Stress To My Children That Buying Something Never Leads To True Happiness.

Trust Is Like That. You Can Break It For A Good Reason. But It Still Remains Broken.

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.

So Basically Your Plan Is To Flail About Helplessly.

I Like To Go Out And Write. So I'll Often Go To A Starbucks Or A Local Coffee Bar, And I'll Sit There And I'll Write. I Can Write Pretty Much Anywhere.

For A Short Time, I Hated Them. But When You Think About It, What Good Does That Do?it Takes So Much To Hold On To Hate—you Lose Your Grip On What's Important, You Know?

Amazing What We Can Self-rationalize When We Really Want Something

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