Quotes from The Woods

Harlan Coben ·  404 pages

Rating: (53.9K votes)


“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, quote from The Woods


“You don't worry about happiness and fulfilment when you're starving.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“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.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“The first sip of beer on a hot day is like that first finger-dip when you open a new jar of peanut butter.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“I ordered a cheeseburger and a beer from a waitress who looked as though she wanted to be in one of those want-to-get-away? commercials. She called me hon. I love when a waitress calls me hon.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods



“Her voice was polished with a hint of a New England-boarding-school accent that shouted refinement over geographic locale. I was trying not to stare. She saw that and smiled a little. I don't want to sound like some kind of pervert because it wasn't like that. Femal beauty gets to me. I don't think I'm alone in that. It gets to me like a work of art gets to me. It gets to me like a Rembrandt or Michelangelo. It gets to me like night views of Paris or when the sun rises on the Grand Canyon or sets in the turquoise Arizona sky. My thoughts were not illicit. Ther were, I self-rationalized, rather artistic.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“A trial is two narratives competing for your attention.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“Those who believe that we are anything other than animals are blind. All humans are savages. The ones who are well fed are just lazier. They don't need to kill to get their food. So they dress up and find so-called loftier pursuits that make them believe that they are somehow above it all. Such nonsense. Savages are just hungrier. That was all.
You do horrible things to survive. Anyone who believes that they are above that is delusional.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“I kept glancing at her animated face, scrunched up as though imitating an adult. I got hit with that overwhelming feeling. It sneaked up on me. Parents get it from time to time. You are looking at your child and it is an ordinary moment, not like they are onstage or hitting a winning shop, just sitting there, and you look at them and you know that they are your whole life and that moves you and scares you and makes you want to stop time.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it.

Maybe we all survive the destruction we have wrought.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods



“We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“Muse usually gestured like an amphetamine-fueled Sicilian who's nearly gotten clipped by a speeding car.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


“You don't worry about happiness and fulfillment when you're starving.
It is good to remember that.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from The Woods


About the author

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

“Warum wollen gewisse Oppositionen nicht gedeihen? Lediglich aus dem Grunde, weil sie die Bahn der Sittlichkeit oder Gesetzlichkeit nicht verlassen wollen. Daher die maßlose Heuchelei von Ergebenheit, Liebe usw., an deren Widerwärtigkeit man sich täglich den gründlichsten Ekel vor diesem verdorbenen und heuchlerischen Verhältnis einer »gesetzlichen Opposition« holen kann. – In dem sittlichen Verhältnis der Liebe und Treue kann ein zwiespältiger, ein entgegengesetzter Wille nicht stattfinden; das schöne Verhältnis ist gestört, wenn der Eine dies und der Andere das Umgekehrte will. Nun soll aber nach der bisherigen Praxis und dem alten Vorurteil der Opposition das sittliche Verhältnis vor allem bewahrt werden. Was bleibt da der Opposition übrig? Etwa dies, eine Freiheit zu wollen, wenn der Geliebte sie abzuschlagen für gut findet? Mit nichten! Wollen darf sie die Freiheit nicht; sie kann sie nur wünschen, darum »petitionieren«, ein »Bitte, bitte!« lallen. Was sollte daraus werden, wenn die Opposition wirklich wollte, wollte mit der vollen Energie des Willens?”
― Max Stirner, quote from The Ego and Its Own


“Not ill? No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body, constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet, nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness,--an illness given by the hand of man!”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Last Day of a Condemned Man


“The Central Intelligence Agency, America’s best-known spy shop. In that fearful post-Joe McCarthy era, when assassinated JFK had publicly loved James Bond and secretly been entangled in covert intrigues like assassination plots against Cuba’s Fidel Castro outsourced to the Mafia by our spies, the CIA was a myth-shrouded invisible army. In those pre-Internet days before electronic books, Web sites with varied credibility, and search”
― James Grady, quote from Six Days of the Condor


“There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.”
― Ashwin Sanghi, quote from Chanakya's Chant


“You are young still. Naturally, one tries this, that and the other, but what one eventually settles down into is the life one prefers.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Death in the Clouds


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