Quote

I can't think of a story that doesn't have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it's dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.

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
Firsts
Picture
Book
Terrible
First
Books
Something
Dark
Think
Story
Thinking
Doesn
Embarked
World
Stories
Dull
Thought
Otherwise

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Announcing your death should be like announcing that you are a lunar moth: It must be done quietly or it will not be believed.
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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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It looked exhausting and pointless, two things that should be avoided at all costs
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There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap. One is that food might spill in your lap, and it is better to stain the napkin than your clothing. The other is that it can serve as a perfect hiding place. Practically nobody is nosey enough to take the napkin off a lap to see what is hidden there.
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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.
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The way sadness works is one of the strangest riddles of the world.
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I want to love you and take you pretty places. Yes, I have things wrong, but also I can walk through walls if you'll let me show you.
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Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they've been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.
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Beef. Yes. Roast beef. It's the Swedish term for beef that is roasted.
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Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.
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Members of your family might say they are working hard all day long, while you are off at school or clarinet lessons, but the only way to know this for sure is to follow them at a discreet distance.
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In love, as in life, one misheard word can be tremendously important. If you tell someone you love them, for instance, you must be absolutely certain that they have replied I love you back and not I love your back before you continue the conversation.
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Chestnuts in stuffing tastes like someone chewed up a tree branch and then French-kissed it into your mouth.
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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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There are some who go through life with a shadow hanging over them, particularly if they live in a building which has long wide awnings.
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When trouble strikes, head to the library. You will either be able to solve the problem, or simply have something to read as the world crashes down around you.
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Love can smack you like a seagull, and pour all over your feet like junkmail. You can't be ready for such a thing any more than salt water taffy gets you ready for the ocean.
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Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.
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This is like a cookie, it tastes like a cookie having sex with a doughnut.
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If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed, but most of us would say something more along the lines of, Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!
Daniel Handler