Quote

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

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Daniel Handler
Age: 54
Born: 1970
Born: February 28
Accordionist
Author
Musician
Novelist
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Lemony Snicket
Great
Doesn
Likely
Good
Doe
Deal
Refers
People
Persons
Deals
Strangers
Person
Word
Guarantee
Wells
Less
Vocabulary
Well
Read
Guarantees
Giving
Evil
Gifts
Mean
Experience
Stranger

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Of course I'm trying to trick you! That's the way of the world, Baudelaires. Everyone runs around with their secrets and their schemes, trying to outwit everyone else.
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You know I want to be a director, but you could never truly see the movies in my head and that, Ed, is why we broke up.
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There is no easy way to train an apprentice. My two tools are example and nagging.
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Like a lot of people whose children were small in the 2000s, I read [Daniel Handler] books out loud and I loved them.
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How can someone so wonderful do something so terrible?
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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!
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Sometimes, even the best of plans will occur to you when it is too late.
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Never, under any circumstances, let the Virginian wolfsnake near a typewriter.
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Every new promise was like something heavy I had to carry, with no place to put anything down.
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and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.
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Take back the smile and the night, take it all back, I wish I could.
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My general writing preface is to write an outline and then ignore about half of it, both on a micro level with the individual book, and on a macro level with the series as a whole, and that's pretty much what's happened.
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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.
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Just about everybody has written a first novel that they throw away before writing their actual first novel.
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In times of extreme stress, one can often find energy hidden in even the most exhausted areas of the body.
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This toast feels raw. Is it safe to eat raw toast?
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I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms.
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It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.
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It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.
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There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.
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