821 Quotes by Daniel Handler

Whenever you are examining someone else’s belongings, you are bound to learn many interesting things about the person of which you were not previously aware.

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.

The file clanked against me, my stupid idea nobody would have gotten had I ever done it. You even wouldn’t have gotten it, Ed, I thought, watching her go. It’s why we broke up, so here it is. Ed, how could you?

There’s an easy method for finding someone when you hear them scream. First get a clean sheet of paper and a sharp pencil. Then sketch out nine rows of fourteen squares each. Then throw the piece of paper away and find whoever is screaming so you can help them. It is no time to fiddle with paper.

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.

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.

Treat reluctance like seasickness,” Errol said, picking something off his sleeve. “If you feel it, focus on the horizon.

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.

We steal the happiness of others in order to be happy ourselves, and when it is stolen from us we voyage desperately to steal it back.