Daniel Handler Quotes

Is it fair for the bears to come down to where humans live, looking for food? Is it fair for the Duke's soldiers to shoot at them? Is it fair for the bears to crush them with giant snowballs? Often, if you point out something that isn't fair, someone will reply, "Life isn't fair." What is to be done with such people?

There are many things in life that become different if you take a long look at them.

The smell of cooking food is often a calming one.

They say love's like a bus, and if you wait long enough another one will come along, but not in this place where the buses are slow and most of the cute ones are gay.

Numbersign questionmark you" and "Asterisk exclamation point the world.

It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing.

Hal is on his way." The nurse announced reentering the room.

Everyone tells you it's all right to cry, but not enough people say it's all right if you don't want people to know.

I want to love you and take you pretty places. Yes, I have things wrong, but also I can walk through walls if you'll let me show you.

Sometimes the things you’ve lost can be found again in unexpected places.

Santa Claus has nothing to do with it," the latke said. "Christmas and Hanukah are completely different things." "But different things can often blend together," said the pine tree. "Let me tell you a funny story about pagan rituals.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

Can't we sleep ten minutes more? I was having a lovely dream about sneezing without covering my mouth, and giving everybody germs.

Desperation is like a spilled drink; even if it's delicious, no one will get near it. Cultivate an aura of glamorous unapproachability.

I had this idea about terrible things happening to orphans, and I knew it was such a horrible idea that the idea of writing it down and then submitting it professionally was obviously absurd.

I was not a particularly brave child, I think, because I had a narrative mind, because my mind automatically went to any terrible thing that could happen.

We need things, and the opposite of them, and we are so rarely completely comfortable.

I was so grateful that Lemony Snicket wasn't the worst movie ever made that I overlooked many things that might have otherwise upset me.

The last safe place is safe no more.

All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.

Death is something you cannot escape, such as death, or a cheesecake that has curdled, both of which always turn up sooner later.

Lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca.

Opera was an enormous part of my childhood. My parents were both opera buffs, and they met in the box seat of an opera performance. And I also was a boy soprano, so before puberty hit, I was onstage playing a wide variety of orphans and urchins in all sorts of operas, and the sheer melodrama of their stories was just always appealing to me.

There are two types of panicking: standing still and not saying a word, and leaping all over the place babbling anything that comes into your head.

It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier.

Never mind what my name is,” the man said. “No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.

It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.

Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation.

Chestnuts in stuffing tastes like someone chewed up a tree branch and then French-kissed it into your mouth.

But I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.

We are all told to ignore bullies. It's something they teach you, and they can teach you anything. It doesn't mean you learn it. It doesn't mean you believe it. One should never ignore bullies. One should stop them.

Everyone on earth would never starve and forever find love and happiness, since we won, but if we’d lost, they would have gouged out our eyes and thrown us naked onto hot coals and poisonous snakes for all the cheering and hugging at the end, strangers hugging like the end of The Omega Virus when Steve Sturmine finds the antidote.

I can't think of a story that doesn't have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it's dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.

At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.

Like a lot of people whose children were small in the 2000s, I read [Daniel Handler] books out loud and I loved them.

'Help me,' Allison says, but she is soft-spoken, and everyone she loves is so far away.

It's funny, particularly when you're a writer and you're doing well, you have that sense of like, "Oh! My view of the world is the one that's going to be published."

You meet people who are in pain in life and love and you forgive them for behaving the way they do.

I often can't remember which scenes are and aren't in the final product, because I saw so many different versions of the Lemony Snicket that I forget which ended up on the cutting-room floor.

He who hesitates is lost

For Beatrice, when we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty. Now I am pretty lonely.

With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.

If you have ever lost a loved one, then you know exactly how it feels. And if you have not, then you cannot possibly imagine it.

Everybody has a theory.

I was stupid, the official descriptive phrase for happy.

Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down.

I'd finished the first two [books] and they were going to to be published, and [editor] said, "We need you to write a summary that will drive people to these books." And it took forever. I couldn't think of a thing to say. I looked at the back of other children's books that were full of giddy praise and corny rhetorical questions, you know, "Will she have a better time at summer camp than she thinks?" "How will she escape from the troll's dungeon?" All these terrible, terrible summaries of books, and I just couldn't.

The Long Goodbye' is one book I like to read over and over again, and it was an enormous inspiration for 'All The Wrong Questions'.