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 More Quotes by Harlan Coben More Quotes From Harlan Coben Years fly by, but the heart stays in the same place. Harlan Coben heart love years Sometimes the loudest cries for help are silent. Harlan Coben asking-for-help helping-others wisdom I try to stress to my children that buying something never leads to true happiness. Harlan Coben stress trying children 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 real heart children 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. Harlan Coben may fall needs The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time. Harlan Coben writing thinking 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 lasts perception play 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. Harlan Coben painting games want 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. Harlan Coben real writing hands 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. Harlan Coben horror violence heart 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. Harlan Coben romance dumb summer I pretty much only wear Lilly Pulitzer ties because my best friend owns the company. Harlan Coben my-best-friend ties friendship Kate Atkinson is an absolute must-read. I love everything she writes. Harlan Coben kate absolutes writing 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 dream kids happy-life 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. Harlan Coben struggle writing book Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something Harlan Coben want-something self want 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. Harlan Coben illness lines crazy Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else. Harlan Coben busy writing littles This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth. Harlan Coben teeth tattoo You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving. Harlan Coben fulfilment starving worry
