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

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
Novel
Everybody
Written
Away
Firsts
First
Writing
Actual
Throw

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Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated.
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The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing” is a phrase that refers to times when people ought to know, but don’t know, about something that is happening very close to them. For instance, you ought to know about the man who watches you when you sleep.
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But I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.
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You may be right,' she said, a phrase which here meant 'I’m wrong, but I don’t have the courage to say so.
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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?
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A new experience can be extremely pleasurable, or extremely irritating, or somewhere in between, and you never know until you try it out.
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We are a nation of children letting horrible things happen, and flunking Calc.
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How can someone so wonderful do something so terrible?
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The Basic Eight and Watch Your Mouth both have first-person voices, and I ended up investigating those voices and investing so much in them that I think many people took them more seriously than they ought to have.
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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.
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Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.
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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.
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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.
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Fetching objects for people who are too lazy to fetch them for themselves is never a pleasant task, particularly when the people are insulting you.
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In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.
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I first told the idea to an editor I had met who, after reading one of my novels for adults that was set in a high school, had an idea that I might write something for children.
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There is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time.
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I'm not very good at the accordion. If I played guitar, I wouldn't be on anyone's album. But because I play the accordion and no one else does, I end up doing strange things.
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...there's not enough ink and paper to say all I wanted.
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Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.
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