Quotes from Fool Me Once

Harlan Coben ·  387 pages

Rating: (54.7K votes)


“Doctors kept stressing that mental disease was the same as physical disease. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued. Maybe, to be more charitable, it was because you could hide a mental disease.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Things can always be said later, but things can never be unheard.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“War is never a meritocracy for the casualties.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“When you can see the stakes, when you realize the true purpose of your mission, it motivates you. It makes you focus. It makes you push away the distractions. You gain clarity of purpose. You gain strength.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once



“But life changes people. It smothers that kind of larger-than-life woman. Time quiets them down. That firecracker girl you knew in high school—where is she now? It didn’t happen to men as much. Those boys often grew up to be masters of the universe. The super successful girls? They seemed to die of slow societal suffocation. So”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“As a soldier, you don’t stand at attention because it looks nice. You stand at attention because, on some level, it either gives you strength or, just as important, makes you appear stronger to both your comrades and enemies.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“There was an awkwardness to him, a stoicism that most people, with their need for appearances and fake smiles, found off-putting. Shane couldn’t handle small talk or the excess bullshittery of modern society. When”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Maya had one of those sudden “pow” moments sneak up on her, the ones all parents experience, when you are simply overwhelmed by your love for your child, when you are awestruck and you can feel something rising inside of you and you just want to hold onto it and yet, at the same time, that caring, that fear of losing this person, scares you into near paralysis. How, you wonder, will you ever relax again, knowing how unsafe the world is? Lily”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“They say you never know how someone will react when the grenade is thrown.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once



“Death is so close, always, a breath away, so perhaps it was wise to introduce children to that concept at an early age. Maya”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Family and money is never a good mix. Someone is always going to feel resentful.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Relationships and marriages are hard enough, but you add war into the mix and small fissures become gaping wounds. No one sees what you’re seeing—again that clear-eyed, unbiased thing—except your fellow soldiers. It’s like one of those movies where only the hero can see the ghosts and everyone else thinks the hero is crazy. In”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“All around her, children and families played and laughed and reveled in the glory of this seemingly ordinary day. They did so without fear or care because they didn’t get it. They all played and they all laughed and they felt so damn safe. They didn’t see how fragile it all was.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Death is so close, always, a breath away, so perhaps it was wise to introduce children to that concept at an early age. Maya filled her head with inanities like this as she watched Joe’s casket disappear into the earth. Distract yourself. That was the key. Get through it. The black dress itched. Over the past decade, Maya had been to a hundred-plus funerals, but this was the first time she’d been obligated to wear black. She hated it. To”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once



“The company was in the short, hirsute form of NYPD homicide detective Roger Kierce.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Guys who lack confidence in so many ways still manage to delude themselves into thinking they are irresistible to all women.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“You said that Joe was slow to give up his wallet. Your husband also wore a very expensive watch. A Hublot, I believe.” Her”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“The Smith and Wesson was stainless steel, as opposed to black. Easy to see in the dark. I could also hear him pull back the hammer. You do that on a revolver, not a semiautomatic.” “And the Beretta?” “I can’t be sure of the exact make, but it had a floating barrel in the style of Beretta.” “As”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Maya knew that she suffered some textbook mental malady from being over there, but the truth is, no one comes back without scars. To her, that malady felt more like enlightenment. She got the world now. Others didn’t. In”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once



“Most people oversimplify Occam’s razor to mean the simplest answer is usually correct. But the real meaning, what the Franciscan friar William of Ockham really wanted to emphasize, is that you shouldn’t complicate, that you shouldn’t “stack” a theory if a simpler explanation was at the ready. Pare it down. Prune the excess.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Coach Phil’s shorts probably fit him okay twenty, thirty pounds ago. His red polo shirt with the word “Coach” stitched in script across the left breast was also snug enough to double as sausage casing. He had the look of an ex-jock gone to seed, which, Maya surmised, he probably was. He was big and intimidating, and his size probably scared people. Keeping”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“I checked the league rules,” Maya said. “I don’t see an exception to the half-game rule. You also didn’t play all your players in the quarterfinals.” He turned toward her and again faced her full-on. He adjusted the brim of his cap and moved into Maya’s personal space. She didn’t step back. During the first half, sitting with the parents and watching the guy’s constant tirades at both the girls and the refs, Maya had seen him slam-dunk that stupid cap onto the ground twice. He’d looked like a two-year-old midparoxysm. “We”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“From the left—the kitchen—someone stepped into view.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“You can participate or you can protect, but you really can’t do both. Her fellow soldiers would understand. Some might force themselves to cross over.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once



“Maya had learned it in the military, but of course, it applied to real life. Your fellow soldiers had to know that you had their back. That was rule one, lesson one, and above all else. If the enemy goes after you, he goes after me too. Maybe”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“What do you think of it?” Claire had asked her then. “It’s a dump.” Claire had smiled. “Exactly, thank you. Just watch.” Maya had no creativity for such things. She could not see the potential. Claire could. She had that kind of touch. Soon the two words that came to mind when you pulled up to the home were “cheerful” and “homey.” The whole place ended up looking like a happy kid’s crayon drawing somehow, with the sun always shining and the flowers taller than the front door. That”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“She hung up. Camp Arifjan had served pizza as a choice at almost every meal, but the sauce tasted like turned ketchup and the dough had the consistency of toothpaste. Since she’d been home, she craved only thin-crust pizza and nobody did that better than Best of Everything. When”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


“Judith was a beautiful woman. She was petite with big round eyes and dainty, doll-like features. She looked younger than her years. There had been some work done—Botox, maybe a little something around the eyes—but it was tasteful, and most of her youthful appearance was due either to genetics or her daily yoga routine. Her figure still drew second glances. Men were drawn to her big-time—looks, brains, money—but if she dated, Maya didn’t know about it. “I”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Fool Me Once


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About the author

Harlan Coben
Born place: in Newark, New Jersey, The United States
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