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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

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The Book I Always

Harlan Coben

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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.

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I Am, After All, A Thriller Writer. I Routinely Delve Into The Darkest Chambers Of The Human Heart. I've Written About Murder, Kidnapping, Depravity, Horror, Violence, And Disfigurement.

Writing A Novel In General Is Like Trying To Reach A Mountain Top You'll Never Quite Reach - So You Try Again And Maybe Get A Little Closer.

Its Funny How You Can Let Yourself Forget For Seconds, How Even In The Heat Of The Horrible, You Can Have Moments When You Fool Yourself Into Thinking It Might All Be Okay

Sure, On A Larger Scale, It Was Healthy To Have People Out There You Cared About More Than Yourself. She Knew That. But Then There Was The Abject Fear You Would Lose It. They Say Possessions Own You. Not So. Loved Ones Own You. You Are Forever Held Hostage Once You Care So Much.

I'm A Little Bit Of A Control Freak.

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.

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 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.

Live In The Moment

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.

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 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.

Struggle Between Good And Evil

What I Want To Do Is Tell Stories About Normal People In The American Suburbs. I Don't Write The Book Where It's A Conspiracy Reaching The Prime Minister; I Don't Write The Book With The Big Serial Killer Who Lops Off Heads. My Setting Is A Very Placid Pool Of Suburbia, Family Life. And Within That I Can Make Pretty Big Splashes.

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.

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.

There Is The Old Catch-22 Line That A Mentally Unstable Person Can't Know, As Per Their Illness, That They Are Unstable. But That Was Wrong. You Can And Do Have The Insight To See Your Own Crazy.

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.

An Hour Before His World Exploded Like A Ripe Tomato Under A Stiletto Heel, Myron Bit Into A Fresh Pastry That Tasted Suspiciously Like Urinal Cake.

The Ugliest Truth, In The End, Was Still Better Than The Prettiest Of Lies.

But Sometimes, Maybe Most Times, It Isn't That Clear. It Is Dark And You Are Near The Edge Of A Cliff, But You're Moving Slowly, Not Sure Which Direction You're Heading In. Your Steps Are Tentative But They Are Still Blind In The Night. You Don't Realize How Close You Are To The Edge, How The Soft Earth Could Give Away, How You Could Just Slip A Bit And Suddenly Plunge Into The Dark.

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.

You Don't Worry About Happiness And Fulfilment When You're Starving.

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.

Hope Can Be The Most Wonderful Thing In The World Or It Can Crush Your Heart Like An Eggshell.

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.

A Trial Is Two Narratives Competing For Your Attention.

Kate Atkinson Is An Absolute Must-read. I Love Everything She Writes.

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.

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

Myron Reached For The Phone And Dialed Win's Number. After The Eighth Ring He Began To Hang Up When A Weak, Distant Voice Coughed. "hello?" Win?" Yeah." You Okay?" Hello?" Win?" Yeah." What Took You So Long To Answer The Phone?" Hello?" Win?" Who Is This?" Myron." Myron Bolitar?" How Many Other Myrons Do You Know?" Myron Bolitar?" No, Myron Rockefeller." Something's Wrong," Win Said. What?" Terribly Wrong." What Are You Talking About?" Some Asshole Is Calling Me At Seven In The Morning Pretending To Be My Best Friend." Sorry, I Forgot The Time.

I'm Thinking Of Taking Up Golf, But The Idea Of Spending Time With Golfers Frightens Me.

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.

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.

I'm Also Inspired By Anything That I Consider Great. It Makes Me Want To Raise My Game Too - Hitchcock Movies, Hopper Paintings, Springsteen Concerts.

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 Remember One Time I Heard This English Professor Asking The Class What The World's Scariest Noise Is. Is It A Man Crying Out In Pain? A Woman's Scream Of Terror? A Gunshot? A Baby Crying? And The Professor Shakes His Head And Says, 'no, The Scariest Noise Is, You're All Alone In Your Dark House, You Know You're All Alone, You Know That There Is No Chance Anyone Else Is Home Or Within Miles—and Then, Suddenly, From Upstairs, You Hear The Toilet Flush.

Let Me Back Up A Little And Tell You Why I Prefer Writing To Real Life: You Can Rewrite. A Novel, For Example, Can Be Cleaned Up, Altered, Trimmed, Improved. Life, On The Other Hand, Is One Big Messy Rough Draft.

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.

Life May Not Always Fall Into Neat Chapters, And You May Not Always Get The Satisfying Ending You're Looking For, But Sometimes A Good Explanation Is All The Rewrite You Need.

Man Plans. God Laughs.

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

Tragedy Is A Hell Of A Teacher. It's Much Too Strict, But It's A Hell Of A Teacher.

Frankly I'm Fairly Boring Or Fairly Busy. Between Writing And Family, I Have Little Time For Anything Else.

It Was One Lesson He Never Forgot.you Don't Sit Back When You Or A Loved One Is Being Assaulted.and You Don't Act Like The Goverment With Their "proportional Responses" And All That Nonsense.if Someone Hurts You,mercy And Pity Must Be Put Aside,you Eliminate The Enemy.you Scorch The Earth.

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

I'm The Jerry Lewis Of Crime Fiction.

In Real Life, Coincidences Happen All The Time. In Novels, They Are Leapt Upon With Fury.

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

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 Wrote Seven Myron Bolitar Novels In A Row, And I Never Want To Write A Myron Book Where He Just Solves A Crime. Every One Of Them I Want To Be Personal, And I Want Him To Grow And Change. The Problem With That Is, It Makes The Series Limited, You Can't Write A Series Where A Guy Is Always Going Through Some Kind Of Crisis.

In The End, We Know What Makes Us Happy. We Also Know What Makes Us Unhappy. That's The Irony. We Know And Yet We Still Mess It Up. That's Part Of The Human Condition, No, And Why We Need To Work On It.

I Once Worked As A Tour Guide In The Costa Del Sol Of Spain.

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.

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

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

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

Falling In Love

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.

There Is A Certain Fate To The Universe And A Certain Randomness.

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

What I Love About The Thriller Form Is That It Makes You Write A Story. You Can't Get Lost In Your Own Genius, Which Is A Dangerous Place For Writers. You Don't Want To Ever Get Complacent. If A Book Starts Going Too Well, I Usually Know There's A Problem. I Need To Struggle. I Need That Self-doubt. I Need To Think It's Not The Best Thing Ever.

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.

I Used To Wonder Why Lucy Liked Those Songs So Much. You Know What I Mean? She Sits In The Dark And Listens And Cries. Music Does That To Her...i Didn't Understand For A Long Time. But I Do Now. The Sad Songs Are A Safe Hurt. It's A Diversion. It's Controlled. And Maybe It Helps You Imagine That Real Pain Will Be Like That. But It's Not. Lucy Knows That, Of Course. You Can't Prepare For Real Pain. You Just Have To Let It Rip You Apart.

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.

The Actual Writing Time Is A Lot Shorter Than The Thinking Time.

Genius Is A Curse. That's How I Look At It. Some Think That The Brilliant Comprehend The Universe In A Way The Rest Of Us Can't. They See The World How It Truly Is—and That Reality Is So Horrible The Lose Their Minds. Clarity Leads To Insanity.

William Goldman's Marathon Man Was A Novel That Taught Me About Suspense. I Was Maybe 16 Years Old When I Read It And I Remember Thinking, "you Could Put A Gun To My Head And I Wouldn't Put This Book Down." I Loved That Feeling - And Want To Give It Others.

I Pretty Much Only Wear Lilly Pulitzer Ties Because My Best Friend Owns The Company.

I'm Not Very Happy Idle. There's Always This Voice In My Head That Says, 'i Should Be Writing.

Sometimes The Loudest Cries For Help Are Silent.

Asking For Help

Painful Memories Didn't Just Ease Back In-they Shoved The Door Open Hard, All Of Them And All At Once

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

Im 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.

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.

Only Bad Writers Think They're Good.

We All Think That We Are Uniquely Complex, That No One Can See What We Are Thinking - Yet We Also Believe That We Have The Rare Ability To Read Others. This Fascinates Me At The Moment.

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.

A Novel Is Like A Sausage. You Might Like The Final Taste But You Don't Want To See How It Was Made.

If I Had, Say, A Tall, Amateur Male Lead Living On The Campus Of A Rural College (six Years), The Next Book Might Feature A Short, Cop Who Lives In The Heart Of Manhattan (missing You).

You Bring Your Own Weather To The Picnic.

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.

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?

So Basically Your Plan Is To Flail About Helplessly.

Part Of The Human Condition Is That We All Think That We Are Uniquely Complex While Everyone Else Is Somewhat Simpler To Read. That Is Not True, Of Course. We All Have Our Own Dreams And Hopes And Wants And Lust And Heartaches. We All Have Our Own Brand Of Crazy

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

Kids Don’t Do What Their Parents Say-they Do What They See Their Parents Do. So Who Was To Blame Here?

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.

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.

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

Summer Romances Cometo An End. That Was Part Of The Deal. They Are Built Like Certain Plants Or Insects, Not Able To Survive More Than One Season. I Thought We Would Be Different. We Were, I Guess, But Not In The Way I Thought. I Truly Believed That We Would Never Let Each Other Go. The Young Are So Dumb.

"so Basically, That Entire Theory Is Blown To Hell."not Basically," Win Corrected. "entirely."

I Would Rather Raise Certain Topics And Maybe Let You Ruminate On Them. I'm Not Big On Answering Them.

You Want This So Badly—this Second Chance, This Chance At Real Redemption—that You Can’t See The Truth.

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.

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 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.

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.

Memories, You See, Hurt. The Good Ones Most Of All.

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

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

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

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.

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.

This Was A Place Where Tattoos Outnumbered Teeth.

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

There's Always A Price You Pay When You Lie. Once You Introduce A Lie Into A Relationship, Even For The Best Of Intentions, It Is Always There. Whenever You’re With That Person Again, That Lie Is In The Room Too. It Sits On Your Shoulder. Good Lie Or Bad Lie, It's In The Room With You Forever Now. It's Your Constant Companion.

The First Sip Of Beer On A Hot Day Is Like That First Finger-dip When You Open A New Jar Of Peanut Butter.

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