Daniel Handler Quotes & Sayings

Like most writers, I look back on all of my finished works with utter regret, and the trouble with writing a series of novels is that you have to go back and read them, and make sure that you haven't forgotten anything you've created, and then when you do that, you're faced with your own mistakes on every trick, from the wrong word in places to entirely the wrong incident. — Daniel Handler

Everyone was right about you- prove them wrong. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

When I think about sex, you know, I want it to feel good. Not feel good, shut up, but right. Happy, not just banging away somewhere. You know, you should not just do it to do it. You should love the guy. — Daniel Handler

It was a secret time and place, you next to me, untraceable and out of this world. — Daniel Handler

To stop staring at you, I kept fiddling with the sugar until you stopped my hand with yours. — Daniel Handler

When you say, "History is written by the winners," you like to think about someone who isn't you. You want to think, "Oh, that's the juggernaut I'm standing against." But you're probably part of it. — Daniel Handler

I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them. — Daniel Handler

I liked, I admit, that we didn't pretend there hadn't been other girls. There was always a girl on you in the halls at school, like they came free with a backpack. — Daniel Handler

A newspaper, as I'm sure you know, is a collection of supposedly true stories written down by writers who either saw them happen or talked to people who did. These writers are called journalists, and like telephone operators, butchers, ballerinas, and people who clean up after horses, journalists can sometimes make mistakes. — Daniel Handler

I want you to love me in particular. — Daniel Handler

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

It is so rare in this world to meet a trustworthy person who truly wants to help you, and finding such a person can make you feel warm and safe, even if you are in the middle of a windy valley high up in the mountains. — Daniel Handler

The bus driver gave me a why-the-hell-aren't-you-at-school look and I gave him a shut-up-you're-a-bus-driver-so-bus-drive look right back. — Daniel Handler

All the deaths are dead for nothing but you're not dead at all. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

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." — Daniel Handler

I love meeting people who have absolutely no sense of irony. It's really fascinating to imagine what it would be like to go through life without understanding even the most basic of ironies. — Daniel Handler

Any playlist without Prince is no friend of mine. — Daniel Handler

The movie was kickass, which was appropriate, because tonight it was called Kickass: The Movie. — Daniel Handler

Everybody has a theory. — Daniel Handler

Stop saying no offense," I said, "when you say offensive things. It's not a free pass. — Daniel Handler

The idea that the curtain rises on what is often more or less a happy scene, and it will fall just a few hours later, and everyone will be dead or have gone mad ... I find that kind of narrative very appealing. — Daniel Handler

Twenty-six," you said, before I could ask you.Everyone was gathered around, or anyway they were around us, swirling like loud, bad surf. The crowd was low in the mix, a few yelps, a few catcalls."Twenty-six," you said again, to the crowd, and took a step toward me.
"Don't," I said, though I couldn't decide.
"Twenty-six," you said. "One for each day we've been together, Min."Somebody oohed. Somebody shushed them.
"And I hope that someday I'll do another something stupid and I'll have to say it a million times because that's how long it'll be, together with you, Min. With you. — Daniel Handler

The idea was women on boats. Lifeline Cruises pitched itself to women seeking adventure, whether a daylong adventure in the waters of the San Francisco Bay or a twelve-day adventure from San Francisco to Alaska and back. Passengers did not have to be survivors of breast cancer or domestic abuse, nor was any of the profit of Lifeline Cruises given to such causes, but the language of its radio ads, slippery and clear, managed to convey that this might be so. 'Empowerment' was one of the words. It's daylong cruise boat was named The Wild Lady, from a poem by Emily Dickinson that Lifeline Cruises had made up. Tote bags sold on board broadcast the words of the ad
The wild lady may seem
adrift to those who cannot dream
but within her uncharted wand'ring eyes
a heart beats healthy, strong and wise!
- and below this were the words 'Emily Dickinson. — Daniel Handler

A nice thing about children's books, though I'm probably alone in this opinion among other people who write and publish them, is that they did get to be in this unrecognized ghetto for a long time. — Daniel Handler

Wherever there's a conductor, you're sure to find a dead composer! — Daniel Handler

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 ... — Daniel Handler

There's not enough ink and paper to say all I wanted. — Daniel Handler

She licked her lips and then wiped them on her hand, her dark lipstick staining her wrist like a suicide. — Daniel Handler

Call me later, you'd said, so I could call you later, at night, and it is those nights I miss you, Ed, the most, on the phone, you beautiful bastard. — Daniel Handler

I talk shit about everybody and then sulk when they don't call me, my friends fall away like I've dropped them out of an airplane, my ex-boyfriend thinks I'm Hitler when he sees me. — Daniel Handler

Every last souvenir of the love we had, the prizes & the debris of this relationship, like the glitter in the gutter when the parade has passed, all the everything & whatnot kicked to the curb. — Daniel Handler

Occasionally there are parents who say, "I brought my child so he or she could learn what the career of a writer is like, and you did this long theatrical performance instead, and I'm very disappointed." — Daniel Handler

But before, not so long ago - my own rose from prom still OK on the mirror, dried but not a corpse - you were just Ed Slaterton, jocky hero, handsome in the student newspaper and star of a million strands of gossip. Now Annette was a person to me, standing right there, and not just an oh-my-God-have-you-heard, and I tried to put it together in my head, the print and the negative, the boyfriend and the celebrity shadow, like Theodora Sire sat next to me in history, borrowing pencils, but was still a movie star above my bed. Because as you came out of the dark to me, you were the boy I was kissing and wanted to kiss more, back to find me at a party like anybody might do, but you were Ed Slaterton too, and not the cad you are now, but just Ed Slaterton, co-captain, with a beer in your hand and Jillian Beach on your arm. — Daniel Handler

I'm nothing, not a single thing. The only particle I had, the only tiny thing raising me up, is that I was Ed Slaterton's girlfriend, loved by you for like ten secs, and who cares, so what, and not anymore so how embarrassing for me. — Daniel Handler

One hears it a lot on airplanes:Make sure you have own mask on, before helping others with theirs. — Daniel Handler

This teaching job did not pay a lot of money, because, let's face it, nobody gives a flying fuck about education, but it was a temporary position. — Daniel Handler

All over the world are particular people, and you could be happy with probably five or six of them, eight if you're bisexual and everyone is. — Daniel Handler

Just about everybody has written a first novel that they throw away before writing their actual first novel. — Daniel Handler

I don't have to answer to you, Adam said, instantly and harshly. He brushed his pants off like he'd just buried his mother. — Daniel Handler

Right now I have the suspicion that the ace of diamonds is trapped forever, face down, beneath the king of diamonds, which is sneering at me like Juror Number Five, and my whole life feels like a similar misshuffle. — Daniel Handler

After all, I was only eighteen then. I'm almost twenty now. I learned lots about narrative structure in my Honors English classes so I know what I'm doing. — Daniel Handler

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

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." — Daniel Handler

I was once almost forced off the stage at a large chain bookstore that shall remain nameless, because she introduced me as Lemony Snicket, and I immediately interrupted her and said, "Oh no, Lemony Snicket isn't here," and then she tried to cancel the event right then and there. — Daniel Handler

I started making plans, thinking we would get that far. — Daniel Handler

Making you happy isn't making me happy — Daniel Handler

This is love, to sit with someone you've known forever in a place you've been meaning to go, and watching as their life happens to them until you stand up and it's time to go. — Daniel Handler

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

Phil Needle supposed what he meant was that he wanted to be God, just long enough to find his daughter. It was not a prayer but a promotion. This was why nobody liked God: they wanted his job. — Daniel Handler

He told her then how sorry he was for last night, but not out loud. — Daniel Handler

Numbersign questionmark you" and "Asterisk exclamation point the world. — Daniel Handler

...the moron who thought love was forever. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

You winked, took the change. I should have seen it, Ed, as a sign that you were unreliable. Instead, I saw it as a sign of charming, which is why I didn't break it off right then and there. — Daniel Handler

They looked at each other like a pair of parentheses. — Daniel Handler

Love is this sudden crash in your path, quick and to the point, and nearly always it leaves someone slain on the green. — Daniel Handler

It will be a very long time before I trust you ever, ever - OK, I trust you again. — Daniel Handler

I listen to Morricone, the famed Italian film composer, while I'm working. — Daniel Handler

You either have a feeling or you don't" - Min — Daniel Handler

It didn't last, it wasn't clear for much longer, and that's why we broke up, but when I close this book and give it to you, I don't think about that, just us holding the book it our hands to buy it and take it here with us, because damn it Ed, that's not why we broke up. I love it, I miss it, I hate to give it back to you, this complicated thing, it's why we stayed together. — Daniel Handler

When you're at sea," Gwen would probably reply, "it's not food. It's fuel, for further exploits."
"So the exploit fuels the next exploit, and the next the next, and so on? Is there nothing more, nothing else?"
"Is there ever? — Daniel Handler

I wrote a comedy, which hopefully [Rick director] Curtiss Clayton will bring to the screen, that I thought was the antithesis of all my work. I thought it was light and sunshiny, and Mr. Clayton reminded me that it is the story of a woman kidnapped and forced to do things against her will, which is not what most people think of as light and sunshiny. — Daniel Handler

I was so angry I knew it would boomerang someplace sometime soon. — Daniel Handler

I didn't like books where people played on a sports team and won a bunch of games, or went to summer camp and had a wonderful time. I really liked a book where a witch might cut a child's head off or a pack of angry dogs might burst through a door and terrorize a family. — Daniel Handler

You think everything's sexual tension," I said to Lauren, "just because you were raised my Mr. & Mrs. Super-Christian. We Jews know that underlying tensions are always due to low blood sugar."

"Yeah, well, you killed my Savior," Lauren said, and Jorda saluted good-bye. "Don't let it happen again. — Daniel Handler

I think pirates, like astronauts, particularly for a boy, are always kind of worth thinking about. — Daniel Handler

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

You know how the nurses started asking me to rate my pain one to ten? I just started giving them random numbers. You can't get to ten, I told the one with those earrings I want to yank out. You can't get to ten because someone might slap you and that would hurt more. — Daniel Handler

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

A note, who writes a note like that? Who were you to write one to me? it boomed inside me the whole time, an explosion over and over, the joy of what you wrote to me jumpy shrapnel in my bloodstream. I can't have it near me anymore, I'm grenading it back to you, as soon as I unfold it and read it and cry one more time. Because me too, and fuck you. Even now. — Daniel Handler

Ok. So the yard is here."
"It's a football field. Don't call it a yard."
"Grass where people sit and hang out is a yard."
"We stole things here, but that doesn't make it a bank. — Daniel Handler

I always think it's silly when people talk about works of culture taking risks. Because there's not any risk involved. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

Dark, light, dark, light, dark-I swung and missed. — Daniel Handler

You can't mind these things, you just can't, for to dislike what makes a person human is to dislike all humans. — Daniel Handler

You know I want to be a director, but you could never truly see the movies in my head. — Daniel Handler

Take it back, Ed. Take it all back. — Daniel Handler

Once more, this is love: it rings and you open up unless it looks like an ax murderer. — Daniel Handler

I have produced things that I would say were sincerely cheerful. But then I am reminded by other people that no one else would see them that way. — Daniel Handler

There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish. — Daniel Handler

I opened my mouth and kissed you then, the first time all night, attacked you and surrendered completely, and let's get out of here. I'm ready, I'm finished, let's not break up, no, no. Take me home, my boyfriend, my love. — Daniel Handler

How many happy people do you think there are in the world? Twelve? — Daniel Handler

And this note was a jittery time bomb, ticking beneath my normal life, in my pocket all day firecely reread, in my purse all week until I was afraid it would get crushed or snooped, in my drawer between two dull books to escape my mother and then in the box and now thunked back to you. A note, who writes a note like that? Who were you to write one to me? It boomed inside me the whole time, an explosion over and over, the joy of what you wrote to me jumpy shrapnel in my bloodstream. I can't have it near me anymore, I'm grenading it back to you, as soon as I unfold it and read it and cry one more time. Because me too, and fuck you. Even now.
I can't stop thinking about you. — Daniel Handler

I don't smoke, although it looks fantastic in films. But I light matches on those thinking blank nights when I crawl my route out onto the roof of the garage and the sky while my parents sleep innocent and the lonely cars move sparse on the faraway streets, when the pillow won't stay cool and the blankets bother my body no matter how I move or lie still. I just sit with my legs dangling and light matches and watch them flicker away. — Daniel Handler

But there was more, as there always is when the love goes. She was haunted, naturally. Otherwise what is the point, why leave your rickety house, and why this yo-yo world giving us things and yanking them back? — Daniel Handler

I don't think film is the writer's medium, and so I was interested to see what a director would do with it. — Daniel Handler

We thought we had time. — Daniel Handler

The street was a yellow streak, however many yards wide, cabs and cabs and cabs and the occasional car that wasn't a cab so the whole thing looked like a scarcely-been-touched ear of corn. — Daniel Handler

For every teenager I know, having a phone is a mixed blessing, because your parents can press a button and figure out where you are. — Daniel Handler

You don't say, Helena said. She took a cigarette out of her ripped purse and lit it because she smoked. She was a smoker. — Daniel Handler

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. — Daniel Handler

I write every day weekdays for about 5 hours, mostly longhand on legal pads. It has gotten neither harder nor easier, sadly or happily. — Daniel Handler

The flames rose bright on everyone's screens, flickering lipstick red and traffic-cone orange and Lord knows what else, depending on how your television's colour was. — Daniel Handler

We thought we had time. I waved but couldn't answer, because I was finally letting myself grin as wide as I'd wanted all afternoon, all evening, every sec of every minute with you, Ed. Shit, I guess I already loved you then. — Daniel Handler

I think books that are meant to be read in the nighttime ought to confront the very fears that we're trying to think about. — Daniel Handler

I'm dumping the whole box back into your life Ed, every item of you and me. I'm dumping this box on your porch, Ed, but it's you, Ed, who is getting dumped. — Daniel Handler