As a nice person, I hope.

I don’t care, because I won’t be here.

All our lives are little books - but they're not someone else's complete book. You're a chapter or a page or a footnote in someone else's life and they are going to keep writing beautiful chapters when you are gone. And those green shoots can grow around grief and put it in perspective. I hope people will think, "I'm glad I read that - Simon's story". And just because it's over, doesn't mean it's gone.

As a great man.

I was followed by a mob of fans when I was doing a photoshoot in Paris. When I signed autographs for them during a break, one remarked: “Who the fuck is Harlan Coben? I told you it wasn’t Bruce Willis.”

I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.

We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.

A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.

I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.