Top 450 Daniel Handler Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Sometimes even in most unfortunate of lives there will occur a moment or two of good.”

— Daniel Handler

302. “Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word ‘mandatory’ means that if you don’t show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it.”

— Daniel Handler

303. “It looked like something the Hemlock needed, or a piece of equipment a plumber had left behind. It looked like none of your business.”

— Daniel Handler

304. “I was not a particularly brave child, I think, because I had a narrative mind, because my mind automatically went to any terrible thing that could happen.”

— Daniel Handler

305. “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!”

— Daniel Handler

306. “There is no worse sound in the world than someone who cannot play the violin but insists on doing so anyway.”

— Daniel Handler

307. “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.”

— Daniel Handler

308. “The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli, rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen.”

— Daniel Handler

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

— Daniel Handler

310. “One of the world’s most popular entertainments is a deck of cards, which contains thirteen each of four suits, highlighted by kings, queens and jacks, who are possibly the queen’s younger, more attractive boyfriends.”

— Daniel Handler

311. “To hear the phrase “our only hope” always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn’t work, there is nothing left.”

— Daniel Handler

312. “Tell me what it is, or prepare to eat harpoon.”

— Daniel Handler

313. “When you start reading nonfiction books about piracy, you realize that it’s actually just a history of desperate people.”

— Daniel Handler

Featured in: Reading Quotes

314. “There are almost as many kinds of libraries as there are kinds of readers.”

— Daniel Handler

315. “Make sure you have your own mask on, before helping others with theirs.”

— Daniel Handler

316. “Love makes the world go round, the hit songs collectively tell us, and the world is full of people you don’t know and might as well be nice to because they won’t leave.”

— Daniel Handler

317. “If you enjoy books with happy endings than you are better off reading some other book.”

— Daniel Handler

Featured in: Reading Quotes

318. “Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you’d see.”

— Daniel Handler

319. “I was so grateful that Lemony Snicket wasn’t the worst movie ever made that I overlooked many things that might have otherwise upset me.”

— Daniel Handler

320. “December 5 is what I saw as we walked together on October 5, let’s go, let’s go together toward something extraordinary and I started making plans, thinking we would get that far.”

— Daniel Handler

321. “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.”

— Daniel Handler

Featured in: Reading Quotes

322. “One cannot spend forever sitting and solving the mysteries of oone’s history.”

— Daniel Handler

323. “I have a dream of what would have happened if what happened instead hadn’t.”

— Daniel Handler

324. “I was never a fan of anything, and yet some people are fans of my books. That’s a bit odd. But I like meeting them.”

— Daniel Handler

325. “I thought it was one thing but it was the other, it was zero zero zero alone on the bus while you slept in the room I had to leave, and that’s why we broke up.”

— Daniel Handler

326. “Forever and ever, world without end.”

— Daniel Handler

327. “They say that when you’re really in love, the world becomes gossamer and gorgeous, but in my experience the world gets grimy, and the love object is in stark relief from the surroundings. This is love, a pretty thing on an ugly street.”

— Daniel Handler

328. “It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself.”

— Daniel Handler

329. “One of the remarkable things about love is that, despite very irritating people writing poems and songs about how pleasant it is, it really is quite pleasant.”

— Daniel Handler

330. “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.”

— Daniel Handler

331. “The trouble with talking about irony is, it’s such a slippery thing that the second you start talking about it, you’re a better example of it than you are an analyst.”

— Daniel Handler

332. “The hallway was lined with numbered doors, odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, and large ornamental vases, too large to hold flowers and too small to hold spies.”

— Daniel Handler

333. “I’ve never had a musical career. So I think it’s been unaffected. I play the accordion. In terms of thinking of it as a musical career, I think it’s sort of like calling yourself an astronaut because you have a shiny suit.”

— Daniel Handler

334. “I like writing for movies. It’s nice to be alone working on fiction in your room, and then it’s nice to be in a room with a bunch of people working on a movie.”

— Daniel Handler

335. “She didn’t look like a girl who would ruin the whole thing at all.”

— Daniel Handler

336. “The sea is nothing but a library of all the tears in history.”

— Daniel Handler

337. “This world is suchier than we are, and the best thing to do is keep moving and find your keys.”

— Daniel Handler

338. “The movie was kickass, which was appropriate, because tonight it was called Kickass: The Movie.”

— Daniel Handler

339. “Are you who I think you are?”

— Daniel Handler

340. “If you have ever lost a loved one, then you know exactly how it feels. And if you have not, then you cannot possibly imagine it.”

— Daniel Handler

341. “I think one of the reasons it ended was that his eyes never lit up for me the way they did for classical music. I realize that in the long run I may not be as wonderful as a Brahms symphony but I think I’m good for a Haydn quintet.”

— Daniel Handler

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

— Daniel Handler

343. “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.”

— Daniel Handler

344. “The library was one enormous room, with long, high metal shelves and the perfect quiet that libraries provide for anyone looking for an answer.”

— Daniel Handler

345. “Everyone tells you it’s all right to cry, but not enough people say it’s all right if you don’t want people to know.”

— Daniel Handler

346. “I find reading screenplays difficult, as they’re only a roadmap for what a movie might end up being.”

— Daniel Handler

Featured in: Reading Quotes

347. “You know, despite all my world-weariness and cynicism, I think I’ve always believed that there is one person in the universe for whom you are truly meant – and the fact that sometimes there are two or even more people on the earth you can fall in love with really bothers me. It suggests that if you work hard you can be meant for anyone.”

— Daniel Handler

348. “It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect, or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable.”

— Daniel Handler

349. “Take it back, Ed. Take it all back.”

— Daniel Handler

350. “So you’re reluctant, I said to myself. Many, many people are reluctant. It’s like having feet. It’s nothing to brag about.”

— Daniel Handler