Daniel Handler famous quotes

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

#Lonely #Firsts #Mets

What should we call him?" Klaus asked. "You should call him Dr. Montgomery," Mr. Poe replied, "unless he tells you to call him Montgomery. Both his first and last names are Montgomery, so it doesn't make much difference." "His name is Montgomery Montgomery?" Klaus said, smiling. "Yes, and I'm sure he's very sensitive about that, so don't ridicule him," Mr. Poe said, coughing again into his handkerchief.
-- Daniel Handler

#Names #Differences #Drs

I think I’ve always believed that there is one person in the universe who you’re truly meant for–for whom you are truly meant–and the fact that sometimes there are two or even more people on the earth you can fall in love with really bothers me. It suggests that if you work hard you can be meant for anyone.
-- Daniel Handler

#Falling In Love #Hard Work #Thinking

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

#Love #Family #Baby

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Cute #Gay #Long

A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #Ignorance #Islands

The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up.
-- Daniel Handler

#Heart #Desire #Turns

Wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake.
-- Daniel Handler

#Cake #Glasses #Order

I’d ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did.
-- Daniel Handler

#Night #Long #Ruins

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Dream #Dark #Directors

Either you have the feeling or you don't. Hawk Davies
-- Daniel Handler

#Feelings #Hawks

The difference between a house and a home is like the difference between a man and a woman-- it might be embarrassing to explain, but it would be very unusual to get them confused.
-- Daniel Handler

#Confused #Home #Men

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
-- Daniel Handler

#Educational #Book #Reading

It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches.
-- Daniel Handler

#Home #Sadness #Ice Cream

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Adventure #Way #Saws

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

#Nurse #Way #Rooms

Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word 'mandatory' means that if you don't show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it.
-- Daniel Handler

#Mean #Night #Giving

Appearance matters a great deal because you can often tell a lot about people by looking at how they present themselves.
-- Daniel Handler

#People #Matter #Appearance

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

#Dark #Might #Not Afraid

Blinded following the Blindfolded
-- Daniel Handler

#Following

If you have ever had a miserable experience, then you have probably had it said to you that you would feel better in the morning. This, of course, is utter nonsense, because a miserable experience remains a miserable experience even on the loveliest of morning.
-- Daniel Handler

#Morning #Feel Better #Miserable

For some stories, it's easy. The moral of 'The Three Bears,' for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house.' The moral of 'Snow White' is 'Never eat apples.' The moral of World War I is 'Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.
-- Daniel Handler

#War #White #Apples

People don't always get what they deserve in this world.
-- Daniel Handler

#People #World #This World

The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.
-- Daniel Handler

#Keys #Caught #Eavesdropping

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

#Order #Said

Sometimes words are not enough. There are some circumstances so utterly wretched that I cannot describe them in sentences or paragraphs or even a whole series of books.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #Sometimes #Enough

It was a curious feeling, that something could be so close and so distant at the same time.
-- Daniel Handler

#Feelings #Curious

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

#Unexpected #Sometimes #Lost

I'm jealous of your hooks," Kevin replied. "Having no hands is better than having two equally strong hands." Don't be ridiculous," one of the white-faced women replied. "Having a white face is worse than both of your situations." But you have a white face because you put makeup on," Colette said, as Sunny climbed back out of the trunk and knelt down in the snow. "You're putting powder on your face right now.
-- Daniel Handler

#Strong #Jealous #Makeup

How can someone so wonderful do something so terrible?
-- Daniel Handler

#Wonderful #Terrible

When do you learn that the world, like any diner worth its salt, is open twenty-four hours a day?
-- Daniel Handler

#Twenties #World #Diners

There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #People #Different

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

#Dream #Sleep #Giving

If you like books with happy endings then put this book down immediately.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #Happy Endings

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Age #Certain

For obvious reasons, I never told you about my notebook, with a cover as green as mansions long ago, which I use as a commonplace book, a phrase which here means 'place where I have collected passages from some of the most important books I have read.
-- Daniel Handler

#Notebook #Mean #Long

You may want to keep a commonplace book which is a notebook where you can copy parts of books you think are in code, or take notes on a series of events you may have observed that are suspicious, unfortunate, or very dull. Keep your commonplace book in a safe place, such as underneath your bed, or at a nearby dairy.
-- Daniel Handler

#Notebook #Thinking #Bed

Instead of the word 'love' there was an enormous heart, a symbol sometimes used by people who have trouble figuring out the difference between words and shapes.
-- Daniel Handler

#Heart #Differences #People

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

#Relationship #Missing #World

It is often said that reading is a gift, but to my mind that is an insufficient description, for the size of the gift of reading is so vast that it is difficult to see what is outside its wrapping.
-- Daniel Handler

#Reading #Mind #Size

Sooner or later, everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two...The solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life.
-- Daniel Handler

#Simple #Two #Events

Miracles can happen, even to those who are small, flammable, and dressed all in black.
-- Daniel Handler

#Miracle #Black

The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.
-- Daniel Handler

#Reading #Book #Eye

Xenial' is a word which refers to the giving of gifts to strangers. . . . I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person. . . . But it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.
-- Daniel Handler

#Mean #Vocabulary #People

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Reading #Book #Hands

Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all.
-- Daniel Handler

#Philosophy #Pet #May

If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means 'flunk'.
-- Daniel Handler

#Good Night #Book #Fall

Just because something is typed-whether it is typed on a business card or typed in a newspaper or book-this does not mean that it is true.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #Mean #Doe

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!
-- Daniel Handler

#Voice #Optimism #Hopeful

Most schools have a loud system of loud bells, which startle the students and teachers at regular intervals and remind them that time is passing even more slowly than it seems.
-- Daniel Handler

#Teacher #School #Bells

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?
-- Daniel Handler

#Fall #World #Way

In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know.
-- Daniel Handler

#Secret #Pockets #Dictionary

Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of "systematically assisting Sisyphus's stealthy, cyst-susceptible sister," which is easier done than said.
-- Daniel Handler

#Done #World #Easier

There's information about everything from poetry to pills, from picture frames to pyramids, and from pudding to psychology--and that's just in the P aisle, which we're walking down right now.
-- Daniel Handler

#Pyramids #Psychology #Pills

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Believe #Hard Times #Journey

I’m not a romantic, I’m a half-wit. Only stupid people would think I’m smart. I’m not something anyone should know. I’m a lunatic wandering around for scraps, I’m like every single miserable moron I’ve scorned and pretended I didn’t recognize. I’m all of them, every last ugly thing in a bad last-minute costume. I’m not different, not at all, not different from any other speck of a thing. I’m a blemished blemish, a ruined ruin, a stained wreck so failed I can’t see what I used to be.
-- Daniel Handler

#Stupid #Smart #Thinking

Count Olaf certainly does sound evil. Imagine forcing children to stand near a stove!
-- Daniel Handler

#Children #Evil #Sound

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

#Tree #Mouths #Branches

I can see it, Ed, I leaned deeper into you, felt you nodding along with the sounds in the room, and your warmth signaled through to me from under your shirt, lovely strong, safe and right.
-- Daniel Handler

#Strong #Lovely #Sound

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

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Loss #Sometimes #Loved Ones

We are a nation of children letting horrible things happen, and flunking Calc.
-- Daniel Handler

#Children #Horrible #Things Happen

There are some who say that sitting at home reading is the equivalent of travel, because the experiences described in the book are more or less the same as the experiences one might have on a voyages, and there are those who say that there is no substitute for venturing out into the world. My own opinion is that it is best to travel extensively but to read the entire time, hardly glancing up to look out of the window of the airplane, train, or hired camel.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #Reading #Home

A good thing to do when one is sitting, eating, and resting is to have a conversation.
-- Daniel Handler

#Sitting #Eating #Good Things

The story of the Baudelaires takes place in a very real world, where some people are laughed at just because they have something wrong with them, and where children can find themselves all alone in the world, struggling to understand the mystery that surrounds them.
-- Daniel Handler

#Children #Real #Struggle

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

#Men #Names #Mind

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

#Hair #Secret #Ingredients

Certain people have said that the world is like a calm pond, and that anytime a person does even the smallest thing, it is as if a stone has dropped into the pond, spreading circles of ripples further and further out, until the entire world has been changed by one tiny action.
-- Daniel Handler

#Circles #People #Doe

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

#Auras #Desperation #Drink

A girl meets a boy, Ed, and everything changes, or so she says.
-- Daniel Handler

#Girl #Boys

Are you who I think you are?
-- Daniel Handler

#Thinking

If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives.
-- Daniel Handler

#People #Trying #Peer Pressure

Goodness! Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite her! Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!
-- Daniel Handler

#Running #Moving #Blessed

I am so tired, I can hardly type these worfs.
-- Daniel Handler

#Tired #Type #I Am So Tired

If he’s not gay and he hung out with you the whole time, he wanted to be. It’s boyfriend or want to be boyfriend or I guess gay. Those are the choices.
-- Daniel Handler

#Gay #Choices #Want

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

#Important #Details #Tiny

It is my fate that some of my questions will never be answered.
-- Daniel Handler

#Fate

Waiting is one of life's hardships. It is hard enough to wait for chocolate cream pie while burnt roast beef is still on your plate. It is plenty difficult to wait for Halloween when the tedious month of September is still ahead of you. But to wait for one's adopted uncle to come home while a greedy and violent man is upstairs was one of the worst waits the Baudelaires had ever experienced.
-- Daniel Handler

#Uncles #Halloween #Home

When somebody is a little bit wrong - say, when a waited puts nonfat milk in your espresso macchiato, instead of lowfat milk - it is often quite easy to explain to them how and why they are wrong. But if somebody is surprisingly wrong - say, when a waiter bites your nose instead of taking your order - you can often be so surprised that you are unable to say anything at all. Paralyzed by how wrong the waiter is, your moth would hang slightly open and your eyes would blink over and over, but you would be unable to say a word.
-- Daniel Handler

#Eye #Order #Espresso

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Children #Book #Thinking

This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.
-- Daniel Handler

#Lying #Moral #Sometimes

Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has not been stabbed with both.
-- Daniel Handler

#Thinking #Pens

For Beatrice - you will always be in my mind, in my heart and in your grave.
-- Daniel Handler

#Heart #Mind #My Heart

Sometime during your life—in fact, very soon—you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book’s first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains.
-- Daniel Handler

#Book #Reading #Finding Yourself

To Beatrice- My love flew like a butterfly Until death swooped down like a bat As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said: 'That's the end of that
-- Daniel Handler

#Butterfly #Montana #Bats

There is a pair of snakes who have learned to drive a car so recklessly that they would run you over in the street and never stop to apologize.
-- Daniel Handler

#Running #Snakes #Car

There was still plenty of water in the basement, and I felt it soaking me from the knees on down. If someone wanted to torture me until I told them a critical piece of information, all they would have to do is get my socks wet. It feels terrible.
-- Daniel Handler

#Water #Pieces #Knees

Hello, freaky peoples!
-- Daniel Handler

#Hello #Freaky

But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, “You are noble enough,” and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt.
-- Daniel Handler

#Two #Doubt #Quality

This feeling is not unlike the sinking in one's stomach when one is in an elevator that suddenly goes down, or when you are snug in your bed and your closet door suddenly creaks open to reveal the person who has been hiding there.
-- Daniel Handler

#Doors #Feelings #Bed

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

#Feel Better #Feelings

My chauffer once told me that I would feel better in the morning, but when I woke up the two of us were still on a tiny island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles, and, as I'm sure you can understand, I didn't feel any better about it.
-- Daniel Handler

#Morning #Feel Better #Men

Reader: Dear Mr. Snicket, What is the best way to keep a secret? Lemony Snicket : Tell it to everyone you know, but pretend you are kidding.
-- Daniel Handler

#Secret #Way #Dear

Here we are at the bottom, almost empty. It's like confetti, these dried remnants you find in the street for a party no one invited you to. But they used to be, I can admit, part of something beautiful.
-- Daniel Handler

#Beautiful #Party #Empty

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

#Book #Problem #Enough

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Song #Taken #Play

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

#Heart #My Heart #Heavy

Nobody wants to hear that you will try your best. It is the wrong thing to say. It is like saying 'I probably won't hit you with a shovel.' Suddenly everyone is afraid you will do the opposite.
-- Daniel Handler

#Opposites #Trying #Want

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

#Running #Behind You #Sheriffs

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.
-- Daniel Handler

#Good Morning #Important #Start The Day