Best 463 quotes of Daniel Handler on MyQuotes

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.

A bolt from the blue.

Accidents happen all the time.

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.

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

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

A long time ago, there was no such thing as school, and children spent their days learning a trade, a phrase which here means "standing around doing tedious tasks under the instruction of a bossy adult." In time, however, people realized that the children could be allowed to sit, and the first school was invented.

A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead.

A mystery is solved with a story.

And a refrigerator may hold a basket of strawberries, which would be important if a maniac said to you, "If you don't give me a basket of strawberries right now, I'm going to poke you with this large stick." But when the two elder Baudelaires and Quigley Quagmire opened the refrigerator, they found nothing that would help someone who was wounded, dying of thirst, or being threatened by a strawberry-crazed, stick-carrying maniac.

And then like a song we'd forgotten was even on the mix, you stepped into the house and my whole life.

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.

and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.

And when love is over when the diner of love seems closed from the outside you want all those hours back along with anything you left at the lover’s house and maybe a couple of things which aren’t technically yours on the grounds that you wasted a portion of your life and those hours have all gone southside.

A new experience can be extremely pleasurable, or extremely irritating, or somewhere in between, and you never know until you try it out.

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.

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

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

Anyone who gives you a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven is a friend for life.

Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.

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

Any playlist without Prince is no friend of mine.

A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

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

Are you ready?" Klaus asked finally. "No," Sunny answered. "Me neither," Violet said, "but if we wait until we're ready we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives, Let's go.

Arguing with somebody is never pleasant, but sometimes it is useful and necessary to do so.

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.

A successful villain should have all these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give up villainy altogether and try to lead a life of decency, integrity, and kindness, which is much more challenging and noble, if not always quite as exciting.

Back in the late '90s, a writer named Daniel Handler decided that kids books were too cheerful. I mean, all the "Harry Potter" series did was occasionally kill off major characters. Thus was born "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" and its mysterious author, Lemony Snicket. "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" is now a great new series on Netflix.

Bad circumstances have a way of ruining things that would otherwise be pleasant.

Beef. Yes. Roast beef. It's the Swedish term for beef that is roasted.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

Boredom is not black licorice, Snicket," she said. "There's no reason to share it with me.

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

But it's far too late for us; ring, hair, letters, photographs - all traces of our love will be scattered then, like an anagram.

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

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.

But the law is an odd thing. For instance, one country in Europe has a law that requires all its bakers to sell bread at the exact same price. A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. And a town not too far from where you live has a law that bars me from coming within five miles of its borders.

But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible.

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.

But the world did not match the picture in my head, and instead I was with a strange, uncombed person, overlooking a sea without water and a forest without trees.

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.

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

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.

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

Complimenting someone in an exaggerated way is known as flattery, and flattery will generally get you anything you want.

Composer” is a word which here means “a person who sits in a room, muttering and humming and figuring out what notes the orchestra is going to play.” This is called composing. But last night, the Composer was not muttering. He was not humming. He was not moving, or even breathing. This is called decomposing.

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

Count Olaf sounds like an awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday. Wouldn't that be satisfying?

Daniel Handler's a writer, musician and the author of, among other things, the "Series Of Unfortunate Events" books. He also wrote the TV version of the books that is available now on Netflix. As said, I recommend both media for this story.