Daniel Handler Quotes

When I wrote Rick, I had the idea that I would take the plot of nearly every opera and turn it into a dark film, which is something I still may do.

They looked at each other like a pair of parentheses.

Besides getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving the news that someone in your family has betrayed you to your enemies, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview.

If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!"

Waiting is one of life’s hardships.

But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible.

One's home is like a delicious piece of pie you order in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening - the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life - and can never find again. After you leave home, you may find yourself feeling homesick, even if you have a new home that has nicer wallpaper and a more efficient dishwasher than the home in which you grew up.

It is a miracle if you can find true friends, and it is a miracle if you have enough food to eat, and it is a miracle if you get to spend your days and evenings doing whatever it is you like to do, and the holiday season - like all the other seasons - is a good time not only to tell stories of miracles, but to think about the miracles in your own life, and to be grateful for them, and that's the end of this particular story.

Those unable to catalog the past are doomed to repeat it.

Blinded following the Blindfolded

I am certain that over the course of your own life, you have noticed that people's rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong.

For Beatrice, our love broke my heart, and stopped yours.

One of the world's most tiresome questions is what object one would bring to a desert island,because people always answer "a deck of cards" or "Anna Karenina" when the obvious answer is "a well equipped boat and a crew to sail me off the island and back home where I can play all the card games and read all the Russian novels I want.

Put your hair up, Min. The secret ingredient is not your hair.

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby - awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.

Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.

I never thought about whether film is inherently more sincere, because certainly I think if Guy Maddin had directed A Series Of Unfortunate Events, there probably could have been more of the stage-y irony that is in the books. But I was just interested to see what people would do with it, and worrying that Brad Silberling wouldn't do what I had in mind.

I didn't realize this was a sad occasion.

I'm not a stranger," I said, and pointed to his book. "I'm someone who reads the same authors you do.

I kind of always think my work is unfilmable, and when I meet people who are interested in filming it, I'm always stunned.

All cannot be lost when there is still so much being found

You would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.

...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.

the table of elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise.

I was in a pharmacy and I saw the warnings on the backs of poisonous substances, and I thought, "Well, that's what I can do." So I wrote a list of ingredients in the book, and warnings that they shouldn't consume those ingredients. The editor and the publisher thought that it was a great way to go in terms of reverse psychology, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me that it was reverse psychology. I just thought that it was sort of an honest assessment making clear that if you were timid or easily disturbed, you could turn away.

Adverbs is a book about love, and I thought that was pretty cheerful, but people who are reading it now are telling me that it's actually quite dark.

I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies.

-Most people would say that she's beautiful. -That's because she's been with most people.

Who are you?" Violet asked. It is confusing to fall asleep in the daytime and wake up at night. "what are you doing with Uncle Monty's reptiles?" Klaus asked. It is also confusing to realize you have been sleeping on stairs, rather than in a bed or sleeping bag. "Dixnik?" Sunny asked. It is always confusing why anyone would choose to wear a plaid shirt.

If you feel . . . that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, 'The world is quiet here,' as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good.

Bad circumstances have a way of ruining things that would otherwise be pleasant.

Get out of my way, you cakesniffers!” said a rude, violent, and filthy little girl, shoving the Baudelaire orphans aside as she dashed by.

Life never end when you are in it.

We laughed the rest of the way, because the point of this story is, it is not the cookies. It is the love.

If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

How did you do that?” Mr. Poe asked. “Nice girls shouldn’t know how to do such things.” “My sister is a nice girl,” Klaus said, “and she knows how to do all sorts of things.

There is only laughing across the land as the car moves you along, on your way someplace with love in the car.

But the world did not match the picture in my head, and instead I was with a strange, uncombed person, overlooking a sea without water and a forest without trees.

The way that the stories go in the Snicket books is just the way stories naturally go to me. They're full of misery, and yet the misery ends up being slightly hilarious. And in terms of the warnings on the back of the books, that really started as an honest assessment of their marketability.

It's different," you said. "You've made, Min, everything different for me. Everything's like coffee you made me try, better than I ever - or the places I didn't even know were right on the street, you know? I'm like this thing I saw when I was little, where a kid hears a noise under his bed and there's a ladder there that's never been there before, and he climbs down and, it's for kids I know, but this song starts playing..." Your eyes were traveling in the treey light.

How do you forget something? You just walk away from it, those who are still alive. There are so few clearings in our hearts and minds, so few places where something can't grow on top of whatever happened to us before, and this is love too.

Is it OK not to be a virgin, yes. Most people aren’t virgins, Min. That’s why there’s people to begin with.

I gasped and pointed the way. I gave you an adventure, Ed, right in front of you but you never saw it until I showed you, and that's why we broke up.

If you wish to avoid an unpleasant story you had best put this book down

Wherever it's good, whatever strange, faraway land, let's go there, let's stay in that place alone.

Count Olaf sounds like an awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday. Wouldn't that be satisfying?