Daniel Handler Quotes

Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don't care for spill orange soda all over themselves.

Undeveloped, the whole thing,tossed into a box before we really had a chance to know what we had, and that's why we broke up.

I know what is going on," said Sir. "I am the Boss! Of course I know!

It looked like something the Hemlock needed, or a piece of equipment a plumber had left behind. It looked like none of your business.

Never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian wolfsnake near a typewriter.

For Beatrice- My love for you shall live forever. You, however, did not.

Take it back, Ed. Take it all back.

People worry more about girls, for a good reason: I don't think my parents thought I was going to be raped by a classmate or attacked when I was walking alone in some neighborhood. So it's not just paranoid parents.

Klaus sighed, and opened a book, and as at so many other times when the middle Baudelaire child did not want to think about his circumstances, he began to read.

This is love, and the trouble with it: it can make you embarrassed. Love is really liking someone a whole lot and not wanting to screw that up. Everybody's chewed over this. This unites us, this part of love.

Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries.

Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.

I do think of emotions as being on a circular path, so you can feel terrible and terrible and terrible, and then all of a sudden it becomes quite funny.

...in life it is often the tiny details that end up being the most important.

Let’s go, let’s go together toward something extraordinary and I started making plans, thinking we would get that far.

There is no easy way to train an apprentice. My two tools are example and nagging.

You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. That’s why the dark is always close by.

It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect, or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable.

it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.

If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives.

You’re just jealous of me because I’m a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian!

All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.

Unless you have been very, very lucky, you have undoubtedly experienced events in your life that have made you cry. So unless you have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.

I had written eight drafts of the Lemony Snicket' screenplay when this changing-of-the-guard thing happened, and I said to the new producers, "I don't think I could write any more drafts." I guess I was sort of hoping they would say, "Well that's okay, this last one is perfect." But instead, they said, "It's funny you should say that. We don't think you can write any more drafts either."

I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms.

I have gone into town to buy a few last things we need for the expedition: Peruvian wasp repellent, toothbrushes, canned peaches, and a fireproof canoe. It will take a while to find the peaches, so don't expect me back until dinnertime. Stephano, Gustav's replacement, will arrive today by taxi. Please make him feel welcome. As you know, it is only two days until the expedition, so please work very hard today. Your giddy uncle, Monty

When things don't go right, go left

It doesn't take courage to kill someone,' Klaus said. 'It takes a severe lack of moral stamina.

I decided that it might be interesting to have terrible things happen to orphans over and over again.

A mystery is solved with a story.

When trouble strikes, head to the library. You will either be able to solve the problem, or simply have something to read as the world crashes down around you.

So she loved him. She just did immediately and again often and clearly naturally and soundly and obviously and many others.

I'm sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what's on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on this inside would would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does.

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

Everything. A letter may be coded, and a word may be coded. A theatrical performance may be coded, and a sonnet may be coded, and there are times when it seems the entire world is in code. Some believe that the world can be decoded by performing research in a library. Others believe that the world can be decoded by reading a newspaper. In my case, the only thing that made sense of the world was you, and without you the world will seem as garbled and tragic as a malfunctioning typewrit9.

It has been said that the hardest job in the world is raising a child, but the people who says this have probably never worked at a comb factory or captured pirates on the high seas.

The more I protest that I'm not Lemony Snicket, and that I'm Daniel Handler instead, the more it becomes clear to the audience that I am in fact Lemony Snicket, that I am in fact standing in front of them.

You can't believe everything you read.

There are almost as many kinds of libraries as there are kinds of readers.

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.

Sometimes when someone tells a ridiculous lie, it is best to ignore it entirely.

If you have ever slept in a covered casserole dish on the highest peak of a mountain range, then you know that it is an uncomfortable place to lay one's head, even if you find a dish towel inside it that can serve as a blanket.

For Beatrice, I cherished, you perished, The world's been nightmarished.

I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.

When it was first optioned, I was told that the chances of The Basic Eight becoming a film were slim because no one was making teen movies, and then later, I was told that the chances were slim because there were so many teen movies, and then I was later told that the chances were slim because teen films were over. I'm not sure when the magic window of opportunity was, but perhaps it's still on the horizon.

who would dare think that, forever? Some idiot girl who wouldn’t know how things played out.

After a certain age, you couldn't even say where you were from. You went someplace, and lived there. And then you went someplace else.

It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea.