Daniel Handler Quotes

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.

We all know of course, that we should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever fiddle around in any way with electrical equipment. NEVER.

They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.

Young writers should read books past bedtime and write things down in notebooks when they are supposed to be doing something else.

Desperate times call for desperate measures" is an aphorism which here means "sometimes you need to change your facial expression in order to create a workable disguise." The quoting of an aphorism, such as "It takes a village to raise a child," "No news is good news," and "Love conquers all," rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen, which is why we provide our volunteers with a disguise kit in addition to helpful phrases of advice.

Sometimes words are not enough.

But one type of book that practically no one likes to read is a book about the law. Books about the law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is an incentive - the word "incentive" here means "an offered reward to persuade you to do something you don't want to do - to read long, dull, and difficult books.

Labor Day is a holiday honoring those who work for a living. Laborious Day is a lesser known holiday honoring those who cannot stop talking about their work.

The whole thing of what I’ve been trying,” you said, “is that you’re different, and you keep asking about the other girls, but what I mean is that I don’t think about them, because of the way you are.

13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.

You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.

...there's nothing wrong with occasionally staring out the window and thinking nonsense, as long as the nonsense is yours.

Writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day.

Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.

E!" Klaus cried. "E as in Exit!" The Baudelaires ran down E as in Exit, but when they reached the last cabinet, the row was becoming F as in Falling File Cabinets, G as in Go the Other Way! and H as in How in the World Are We Going to Escape?

There are secrets everywhere. I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them.

And then of course the music sprang up, lousy rock as bold and dull as a giant potato. "Love this song," Todd said, like it was unusually brave to like what was number one on the radio.

Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make - bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake - if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble.

An Overall Feeling of Doom that One Cannot Ever Escape no Matter What One Does

Everything else has vanished, so you take them now. Maybe if you're the one keeping them, I'll be the one feeling better.

But just suddenly I really, really needed to see you again right that minute, that night.

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.

I go to bed early and rise late and feel as if I have hardly slept, probably because I have been reading almost the entire time.

...the moron who thought love was forever.

There are so many movies like this, where you thought you were smarter than the screen but the director was smarter than you, of course he's the one, of course it was a dream, of course she's dead, of course, it's hidden right there, of course it's the truth and you in your seat have failed to notice in the dark.

Wherever there’s a conductor, you’re sure to find a dead composer!

Never look a gift lion in the mouth.

There are some secrets you want to keep to yourself, even if they don't matter. They might only matter if you keep them secret.

What do your parents know, about surviving?

Love can smack you like a seagull, and pour all over your feet like junk mail.

So you’re reluctant, I said to myself. Many, many people are reluctant. It’s like having feet. It’s nothing to brag about.

I'm always interested to see what films are made of books. I kind of don't participate as a filmgoer in any kind of debate about what's better, the book or the movie. So I think it's interesting when people want to do it.

I do what I do," I said, "in order to do something else.

Every problem has a solution. Sometimes it just takes a long time to find the solution - even if it's right in front of your nose.

Tell it to everyone you know, but pretend you're kidding.

I like to give people novels I think they would like, on no particular occasion - just when we're in a bookstore together. I like to receive reference books on my birthday.

It is always tedious when someone tells you that if you don't stop crying, they will give you something to cry about, because if you are crying then you already have something to cry about, and so there is no reason for them to give you anything additional to cry about, thank you very much.

I hadn't even been looking, not for you, and now you were my heart's desire.

If everyone fought fire with fire, the whole world would go up in smoke.

Life isn't fair," he said, in his undisguised voice, and for once the Baudelaire orphans agreed with every word the man said.

This knowledge sits in my heart, heavy as a paperweight.

The only thing he cares about.

It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety.

They say that when you’re really in love, the world becomes gossamer and gorgeous, but in my experience the world gets grimy, and the love object is in stark relief from the surroundings. This is love, a pretty thing on an ugly street.

But the three siblings were not born yesterday. Violet was born more than fifteen years before this particular Wednesday, and Klaus was born approximately two years after that, and even Sunny, who had just passed out of babyhood, was not born yesterday. Neither were you, unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life.

I met [my editor] in a bar where alcoholic beverages are served and I bought her one and I told her the idea. And she said that she liked it very much, which embarrassed me because I thought it meant that she was a lightweight and that in the morning, as so many women say to so many men, what seems like a good idea, you know, turns out not to be.

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . .

Announcing your death should be like announcing that you are a lunar moth: It must be done quietly or it will not be believed.