Harlan Coben

Let's talk about a pitch for a football match.

You know, people put it out with lime.

And if you trample on it enough, you don't really know

where's out of bounds and where's not out of bounds fair is foul foul is fair i want to play as close to that line as i can i find that's the person that's the most interesting the villain you can almost see yourself doing and i think that's sometimes the part of the appeal of also i think some of our bad politicians it's not that they're being honest because we know they're not they're lying like rugs but we almost admire the fact that they don't give a crap about that they they are id and

That's this, you know, id and superego and all that.

They don't care.

And there's a side of us that kind of admires that.

I read more, I guess, in more elementary school.

I start with C.S.

Lewis's Narnia series.

It was huge.

A teacher had read part of that to us when I was in fourth grade, so I've been at 10 or 11 years old, and I read that whole series.

A Wrinkle in Time series, Madeline L'Engel was a big factor.

When I was a little younger, I loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl.

Did you come across any?

No, not really.

I mean, because it wasn't much of it around.

I mean, if I stumbled across a, you know, a Playboy or a Penthouse forum, yeah, you know, I would read it and look at it or whatever.

You know, frankly, neither one of them did.

I sort of had to learn it on the streets and through trial and error.