Background Image

...

With The Publishing Of The Basic Eight, It Was Often Assumed That I Was Really Immature And Callow, And With The Publishing Of Watch Your Mouth, It Was Assumed That I Was Oversexualized, And With Lemony Snicket, It's Often Assumed That I'm Erudite And Depressed. But All The Voices More Or Less Came Naturally To Me.

-Daniel Handler

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

With The Publishing Of

Daniel Handler

...

With The Publishing Of The Basic Eight, It Was Often Assumed That I Was Really Immature And Callow, And With The Publishing Of Watch Your Mouth, It Was Assumed That I Was Oversexualized, And With Lemony Snicket, It's Often Assumed That I'm Erudite And Depressed. But All The Voices More Or Less Came Naturally To Me.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Daniel Handler

Temper Tantrums, However Fun They May Be To Throw, Rarely Solve Whatever Problem Is Causing Them.

I Can't Imagine Why You Would Want To Take Your Child To See What The Career Of A Writer Is Like, Because It Mostly Consists Of Sitting In A Room Typing, Or Going To The Library And Looking Something Up. Those Are Not Exciting Things To Watch.

Troublesome Things Tend To Remain Troublesome No Matter How Many Times You Do Them.

If You Are Interested In Happy Endings, You Would Be Better Off Reading Some Other Book. In This Book, Not Only Is There No Happy Ending, There Is No Happy Beginning And Very Few Happy Things In The Middle. This Is Because Not Very Many Happy Things Happened In The Lives Of The Three Baudelaire Youngsters.

It Turns Out She Is Canadian, My Editor, And So She Drinks Like A Fish. So She Wasn't A Lightweight At All. And In The Morning, She Said That The Idea Still Seemed Like A Good One, And Here We Are.

This Is Love, To Sit With Someone You've Known Forever In A Place You've Been Meaning To Go, And Watching As Their Life Happens To Them Until You Stand Up And It's Time To Go.

Do The Scary Thing First, And Get Scared Later.

Most Schools Have A Loud System Of Loud Bells, Which Startle The Students And Teachers At Regular Intervals And Remind Them That Time Is Passing Even More Slowly Than It Seems.

All The Secrets Of The World Are Contained In Books. Read At Your Own Risk.

Lately It Has Become More And More Difficult To Attend Dinner Parties Without The Evening Ending In Gunfire Or Tapioca.

I Have Produced Things That I Would Say Were Sincerely Cheerful. But Then I Am Reminded By Other People That No One Else Would See Them That Way.

Knowing That Something Is Wrong And Doing It Anyway Happens Very Often In Life, And I Doubt I Will Ever Know Why.

When It Was First Optioned, I Was Told That The Chances Of The Basic Eight Becoming A Film Were Slim Because No One Was Making Teen Movies, And Then Later, I Was Told That The Chances Were Slim Because There Were So Many Teen Movies, And Then I Was Later Told That The Chances Were Slim Because Teen Films Were Over. I'm Not Sure When The Magic Window Of Opportunity Was, But Perhaps It's Still On The Horizon.

Numbersign Questionmark You" And "asterisk Exclamation Point The World.

Exclamation Points

I Love No One But You, I Have Discovered, But You Are Far Away And I Am Here Alone.

Long Distance Relationship

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.

When You Start Reading Nonfiction Books About Piracy, You Realize That It's Actually Just A History Of Desperate People.

I’m Not A Cuckoo, Either. I’m A Fool Is What.

There Is No Easy Way To Train An Apprentice. My Two Tools Are Example And Nagging.

Those Unable To Catalog The Past Are Doomed To Repeat It.

Sometimes, Just Saying That You Hate Something, And Having Someone Agree With You, Can Make You Feel Better About A Terrible Situation.

If Writers Wrote As Carelessly As Some People Talk, Then Adhasdh Asdglaseuyt[bn[ Pasdlgkhasdfasdf.

People Worry More About Girls, For A Good Reason: I Don't Think My Parents Thought I Was Going To Be Raped By A Classmate Or Attacked When I Was Walking Alone In Some Neighborhood. So It's Not Just Paranoid Parents.

Stealing, Of Course, Is A Crime, And A Very Impolite Thing To Do. But Like Most Impolite Things, It Is Excusable Under Certain Circumstances. Stealing Is Not Excusable If, For Instance, You Are In A Museum And You Decide That A Certain Painting Would Look Better In Your House, And You Simply Grab The Painting And Take It There. But If You Were Very, Very Hungry, And You Had No Way Of Obtaining Money, It Would Be Excusable To Grab The Painting, Take It To Your House, And Eat It.

Stop Saying No Offense,” I Said, “when You Say Offensive Things. It’s Not A Free Pass.

People Don't Always Get What They Deserve In This World.

I Never Want To Be Away From You Again, Except At Work, In The Restroom Or When One Of Us Is At A Movie The Other Does Not Want To See.

I Decided That It Might Be Interesting To Have Terrible Things Happen To Orphans Over And Over Again.

I Like To Give People Novels I Think They Would Like, On No Particular Occasion - Just When We're In A Bookstore Together. I Like To Receive Reference Books On My Birthday.

How Wrong To Think I Was Anyone Else, Like Thinking Grass Stains Make You A Beautiful View, Like Getting Kissed Makes You Kissable, Like Feeling Warm Makes You Coffee, Like Liking Movies Makes You A Director. How Utterly Incorrect To Think It Any Other Way, A Box Of Crap Is Treasures, A Boy Smiling Means It, A Gentle Moment Is A Life Improved.

My Work Is Very Dear To Me, And Certainly I Have Had All The Emotional Highs And Lows That Go With Trying To Get It To An Audience. But I Do Have Some Kind Of Detachment That Seems Somewhat Unusual In My Trade. I'm A Writer Who Writes Every Day. I Don't Have A Period Of Months Where I Can't Get Anything Done And I Wander Around Tearing My Hair Out. When I Come Back From A Book Tour, For Instance, I Might Have One Day Where I Sleep Late And Then Check My E-mail, And Then Go For A Walk, And Then The Next Day I'm Really Itching To Get Back At Writing A Story.

It Was A Secret Time And Place, You Next To Me, Untraceable And Out Of This World

Accidents Happen All The Time.

Accidents Happen

In This Book, Not Only Is There No Happy Ending, There Is No Happy Beginning And Very Few Happy Things In The Middle.

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.

An Overall Feeling Of Doom That One Cannot Ever Escape No Matter What One Does

Tears Are Curious Things, For Like Earthquakes Or Puppet Shows, They Can Occur At Any Time, Without Any Warning And Without Any Good Reason.

There Is No Worse Sound In The World Than Someone Who Cannot Play The Violin But Insists On Doing So Anyway.

There Are Two Types Of Panicking: Standing Still And Not Saying A Word, And Leaping All Over The Place Babbling Anything That Comes Into Your Head.

It Seems To Me That Oftentimes In Young Relationships Once There's A Problem Of Some Significance Then It's Almost Like They're Both Racing For The Dumper Buzzer.

No Matter Who You Are, No Matter Where You Live, And No Matter How Many People Are Chasing You, What You Don't Read Is Often As Important As What You Do Read.

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.

The Way That The Stories Go In The Snicket Books Is Just The Way Stories Naturally Go To Me. They're Full Of Misery, And Yet The Misery Ends Up Being Slightly Hilarious. And In Terms Of The Warnings On The Back Of The Books, That Really Started As An Honest Assessment Of Their Marketability.

Just About Everybody Has Written A First Novel That They Throw Away Before Writing Their Actual First Novel.

I Can See It, Ed, I Leaned Deeper Into You, Felt You Nodding Along With The Sounds In The Room, And Your Warmth Signaled Through To Me From Under Your Shirt, Lovely Strong, Safe And Right.

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.

The Thing With Your Heart's Desire Is That Your Heart Doesn't Even Know What It Desires Until It Turns Up.

So She Loved Him. She Just Did Immediately And Again Often And Clearly Naturally And Soundly And Obviously And Many Others.

Adverbs Is A Book About Love, And I Thought That Was Pretty Cheerful, But People Who Are Reading It Now Are Telling Me That It's Actually Quite Dark.

Everybody Will Die, But Very Few People Want To Be Reminded Of That Fact.

Or Why You Are Wearing A Picture Of Santa Clause On You Shirts, But-” “it’s Herman Melville.

...there's Nothing Wrong With Occasionally Staring Out The Window And Thinking Nonsense, As Long As The Nonsense Is Yours.

Miracles Can Happen, Even To Those Who Are Small, Flammable, And Dressed All In Black.

Miracles Can Happen

It Is One Of Life's Bitterest Truths That Bedtime So Often Arrives Just When Things Are Really Getting Interesting.

Scolding Must Be Very, Very Fun, Otherwise Children Would Be Allowed To Do It. It Is Not Because Children Don’t Have What It Takes To Scold. You Need Only Three Things, Really. You Need Time, To Think Up Scolding Things To Say. You Need Effort, To Put These Scolding Things In A Good Order, So That The Scolding Can Be More And More Insulting To The Person Being Scolded. And You Need Chutzpah, Which Is A Word For The Sort Of Show-offy Courage It Takes To Stand In Front Of Someone And Give Them A Good Scolding, Particularly If They Are Exhausted And Sore And Not In The Mood To Hear It.

I Am Certain That Over The Course Of Your Own Life, You Have Noticed That People's Rooms Reflect Their Personalities. In My Room, For Instance, I Have Gathered A Collection Of Objects That Are Important To Me, Including A Dusty Accordion On Which I Can Play A Few Sad Songs, A Large Bundle Of Notes On The Activities Of The Baudelaire Orphans, And A Blurry Photograph, Taken A Very Long Time Ago, Of A Woman Whose Name Is Beatrice. These Are Items That Are Very Precious And Dear To Me.

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.

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.

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.

Nobody Wants To Hear That You Will Try Your Best. It Is The Wrong Thing To Say. It Is Like Saying 'i Probably Won't Hit You With A Shovel.' Suddenly Everyone Is Afraid You Will Do The Opposite.

What You Don't Read Is Often As Important As What You Do Read.

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.

Sometime During Your Life—in Fact, Very Soon—you May Find Yourself Reading A Book, And You May Notice That A Book’s First Sentence Can Often Tell You What Sort Of Story Your Book Contains.

Finding Yourself

If You Wish To Avoid An Unpleasant Story You Had Best Put This Book Down

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?

Never Mind What My Name Is,” The Man Said. “no One Can Pronounce It Anyway. Just Call Me Sir.

The Sad Truth Is The Truth Is Sad.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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.

Either You Have The Feeling Or You Don't. Hawk Davies

You May Be Right,' She Said, A Phrase Which Here Meant 'i’m Wrong, But I Don’t Have The Courage To Say So.

When Someone Is Crying, Of Course, The Noble Thing To Do Is To Comfort Them. But If Someone Is Trying To Hide Their Tears, It May Also Be Noble To Pretend You Do Not Notice Them.

Hup Hup Ha Ha Hammy Hee Hee!

You Might Find It Difficult To See Anything But Your Own Sadness, The Way Smoke Can Cover A Landscape So That All Anyone Can See Is Black. You May Find That If Someone Pours Water All Over You, You Are Damp And Distracted, But Not Cured Of Your Sadness, The Way A Fire Department Can Douse A Fire But Never Recover What Has Been Burnt Down.

Sometimes The Things You’ve Lost Can Be Found Again In Unexpected Places.

Chestnuts In Stuffing Tastes Like Someone Chewed Up A Tree Branch And Then French-kissed It Into Your Mouth.

The Library Was One Enormous Room, With Long, High Metal Shelves And The Perfect Quiet That Libraries Provide For Anyone Looking For An Answer.

Love Can Smack You Like A Seagull, And Pour All Over Your Feet Like Junk Mail.

I Am So Tired, I Can Hardly Type These Worfs.

I'd Written My First Novel For Adults, Which Was Called Basic Eight And Was Set In A High School, And We Were Having A Devil Of A Time Selling It. It Ended Up In The Hands Of An Editor Of A Children's Publishing House, For Which It Was Entirely Inappropriate. She Said, "well, We Can't Publish This, But I Think You Should Write Something For Children," Which I Thought Was A Really Terrible Idea.

There Is A Kind Of Crying I Hope You Have Not Experienced, And It Is Not Just Crying About Something Terrible That Has Happened, But A Crying For All Of The Terrible Things That Have Happened, Not Just To You But To Everyone You Know And To Everyone You Don’t Know And Even The People You Don’t Want To Know, A Crying That Cannot Be Diluted By A Brave Deed Or A Kind Word, But Only By Someone Holding You As Your Shoulders Shake And Your Tears Run Down Your Face.

I Often Can't Remember Which Scenes Are And Aren't In The Final Product, Because I Saw So Many Different Versions Of The Lemony Snicket That I Forget Which Ended Up On The Cutting-room Floor.

I Gasped And Pointed The Way. I Gave You An Adventure, Ed, Right In Front Of You But You Never Saw It Until I Showed You, And That's Why We Broke Up.

How Can Someone So Wonderful Do Something So Terrible?

The Idea That The Curtain Rises On What Is Often More Or Less A Happy Scene, And It Will Fall Just A Few Hours Later, And Everyone Will Be Dead Or Have Gone Mad... I Find That Kind Of Narrative Very Appealing.

Strange As It May Seem, I Still Hope For The Best, Even Though The Best, Like An Interesting Piece Of Mail, So Rarely Arrives, And Even When It Does It Can Be Lost So Easily.

The Miracle Is The Adverbs, The Way Things Are Done.

Sooner Or Later, Everyone's Story Has An Unfortunate Event Or Two...the Solution, Of Course, Is To Stay As Far Away From The World As Possible And Lead A Safe, Simple Life.

Inspirational Life

Even The Best Plans Can Change If There's An Accident.

Never Trust Anyone Who Has Not Brought A Book With Them.

It Seemed To Me That Every Adult Did Something Terrible Sooner Or Later. And Every Child, I Thought, Sooner Or Later Becomes An Adult.

This Feeling Is Not Unlike The Sinking In One's Stomach When One Is In An Elevator That Suddenly Goes Down, Or When You Are Snug In Your Bed And Your Closet Door Suddenly Creaks Open To Reveal The Person Who Has Been Hiding There.

Someone Can Break Your Heart, Leave You Dead On The Lawn, And Still You Never Learn What To Say To Stop It All Over Again.

Hello, Freaky Peoples!

I’m Happier Than A Pig Eating Bacon!

Tell It To Everyone You Know, But Pretend You're Kidding.

Oftentimes. When People Are Miserable, They Will Want To Make Other People Miserable, Too. But It Never Helps.

If I Were To Say, "yes, I Am A Fascinating, Erudite Person," What Would That Say About Me? I Don't Know.

They're Book Addicts.

It Looked Exhausting And Pointless, Two Things That Should Be Avoided At All Costs

A New Experience Can Be Extremely Pleasurable, Or Extremely Irritating, Or Somewhere In Between, And You Never Know Until You Try It Out.

New Experiences

It Looked Like Something The Hemlock Needed, Or A Piece Of Equipment A Plumber Had Left Behind. It Looked Like None Of Your Business.

One Has To Adopt A Sort Of Zen Calm, In Which You Know You Wrote The Best Book That You Could At The Time.

Anyone Who Gives You A Cinnamon Roll Fresh Out Of The Oven Is A Friend For Life.

Friends For Life

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!"

There Is Nothing Particularly Wrong With Salmon, Of Course, But Like Caramel Candy, Strawberry Yogurt, Or Liquid Carpet Cleaner, If You Eat Too Much Of It You Are Not Going To Enjoy Your Meal.

I Go To Bed Early And Rise Late And Feel As If I Have Hardly Slept, Probably Because I Have Been Reading Almost The Entire Time.

It Is Much, Much Worse To Receive Bad News Through The Written Word Than By Somebody Simply Telling You, And I’m Sure You Understand Why. When Somebody Simply Tells You Bad News, You Hear It Once, And That’s The End Of It. But When Bad News Is Written Down, Whether In A Letter Or A Newspaper Or On Your Arm In Felt Tip Pen, Each Time You Read It, You Feel As If You Are Receiving The Bad News Again And Again.

It Is Often Said That Reading Is A Gift, But To My Mind That Is An Insufficient Description, For The Size Of The Gift Of Reading Is So Vast That It Is Difficult To See What Is Outside Its Wrapping.

The More I Protest That I'm Not Lemony Snicket, And That I'm Daniel Handler Instead, The More It Becomes Clear To The Audience That I Am In Fact Lemony Snicket, That I Am In Fact Standing In Front Of Them.

I'd Made Pretty Clear To The People At Paramount And Dreamworks That, If They Wanted Lemony Snicket To Comment, He Would Be Completely Horrified By The Entire Film. And As Long As They Understood That, It Was Okay. I'm Not Much Of A Fan Of Dvd Commentaries Myself, So This Was My Way Of Getting Revenge, In A Sense, For All The Puffed-up Directors And Stars Who Talk Endlessly About The Self-aggrandizing Minutiae Of Making A Movie.

Keep Anyone With Whom You Can Read In Silence.

...there's Not Enough Ink And Paper To Say All I Wanted.

The Smell Of Cooking Food Is Often A Calming One.

They Were Almond Cookies, Although They Could Have Been Made Of Spinach And Shoes For All I Cared. I Ate Eleven Of Them, Right In A Row. It Is Rude To Take The Last Cookie.

It's Funny, Particularly When You're A Writer And You're Doing Well, You Have That Sense Of Like, "oh! My View Of The World Is The One That's Going To Be Published."

Love Was In The Air, So Both Of Us Walked Through Love On Our Way To The Corner.

There Is Only Laughing Across The Land As The Car Moves You Along, On Your Way Someplace With Love In The Car.

I Do Think Of Emotions As Being On A Circular Path, So You Can Feel Terrible And Terrible And Terrible, And Then All Of A Sudden It Becomes Quite Funny.

They Say In Every Library There Is A Single Book That Can Answer The Question That Burns Like A Fire In The Mind.

If We Wait Until We're Ready, We'll Be Waiting For The Rest Of Our Lives.

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.

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.

Even Though There Are No Ways Of Knowing For Sure, There Are Ways Of Knowing For Pretty Sure.

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.

Everything Else Has Vanished, So You Take Them Now. Maybe If You're The One Keeping Them, I'll Be The One Feeling Better.

In America Now There Is This Phenomenon Called Helicopter Parenting, Where You're Hovering Over Your Child For The Whole Time. Parents There View Their Job As Being To Make Sure Their Kid Never Has A Moment Of Unhappiness. Of Course, As A Parent Myself, I Can Understand The Urge, But I Don't Know Whether It Would Be Healthy Or Possible.

I Had This Idea About Terrible Things Happening To Orphans, And I Knew It Was Such A Horrible Idea That The Idea Of Writing It Down And Then Submitting It Professionally Was Obviously Absurd.

You Must Be All A-tingle With Excitement.' 'i Guess So,' I Said, But I Did Not Feel A-tingle. I Did Not Feel A-anything.

If You Are Allergic To A Thing, It Is Best Not To Put That Thing In Your Mouth, Particularly If The Thing Is Cats.

This Knowledge Sits In My Heart, Heavy As A Paperweight.

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.

There Was Something I Was Always Very Good At, However, And That Was Teaching Myself Not To Be Frightened While Frightening Things Are Going On. It Is Difficult To Do This, But I Had Learned. It Is Simply A Matter Of Putting One’s Fear Aside, Like The Vegetable On The Plate You Don’t Want To Touch Until All Of Your Rice And Chicken Are Gone, And Getting Frightened Later, When One Is Out Of Danger. Sometimes I Imagine I Will Be Frightened For The Rest Of My Life Because Of All Of The Fear I Put Aside During My Time In Stain’d-by-the-sea.

I Guess We’ll Be Traveling In Uncharted Waters.” “that’ll Be Fun,” Phil Said.

Uncharted Waters

Your Initial Opinion On Just About Anything May Change Over Time.

First Impression

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.

Someone You Love

When You Say, "history Is Written By The Winners," You Like To Think About Someone Who Isn't You. You Want To Think, "oh, That's The Juggernaut I'm Standing Against." But You're Probably Part Of It.

The Thing You Hope Will Never Happen To You Might Just Happen To Someone Else Instead, Who Has Been Spending Their Life Dreading The Thing That Will Happen To You.

Death Is Something You Cannot Escape, Such As Death, Or A Cheesecake That Has Curdled, Both Of Which Always Turn Up Sooner Later.

Boredom Is Not Black Licorice, Snicket," She Said. "there's No Reason To Share It With Me.

Opera Was An Enormous Part Of My Childhood. My Parents Were Both Opera Buffs, And They Met In The Box Seat Of An Opera Performance. And I Also Was A Boy Soprano, So Before Puberty Hit, I Was Onstage Playing A Wide Variety Of Orphans And Urchins In All Sorts Of Operas, And The Sheer Melodrama Of Their Stories Was Just Always Appealing To Me.

Whenever You Are Examining Someone Else's Belongings, You Are Bound To Learn Many Interesting Things About The Person Of Which You Were Not Previously Aware.

No Reality Has The Power To Dispel A Dream.

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.

Announcing Your Death Should Be Like Announcing That You Are A Lunar Moth: It Must Be Done Quietly Or It Will Not Be Believed.

Maybe, Generations Ago, Young People Rebelled Out Of Some Clear Motive, But Now, We Know We're Rebelling. Between Teen Movies And Sex-ed Textbooks We're So Ready For Our Rebellious Phase We Can't Help But Feel It's Safe, Contained. It Will Turn Out All Right, Despite The Risk, Snug In The Shell Of Rebellion Narrative. Rebellion Narrative, Does That Make Sense? It Was Appropriate To Do, So We Did It.

Shyness Is A Curious Thing, Because, Like Quicksand, It Can Strike People At Any Time, And Also, Like Quicksand, It Usually Makes Its Victims Look Down.

I Will Love You As Misfortune Loves Orphans, As Fire Loves Innocence, And As Justice Loves To Sit And Watch While Everything Goes Wrong.

A Good Thing To Do When One Is Sitting, Eating, And Resting Is To Have A Conversation.

The Long Goodbye' Is One Book I Like To Read Over And Over Again, And It Was An Enormous Inspiration For 'all The Wrong Questions'.

Are You Who I Think You Are?

The Edith Head Trio, I Would Say, Would Be Even Less Of A Musical Career Than Playing The Accordion, Particularly Because I Played The Accordion In The Edith Head Trio. I'm Very Impressed By Your Googling. The Edith Head Trio And Another Band, Tzamboni, Were Two Bands I Was In After College That Played At Tiny Clubs To Little Acclaim. Our Gypsy Tango Version Of "when Doves Cry" Was Our Biggest Hit.but We Were Not Destined For Greatness.

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.

I Kind Of Always Think My Work Is Unfilmable, And When I Meet People Who Are Interested In Filming It, I'm Always Stunned.

If You Like Books With Happy Endings Then Put This Book Down Immediately.

Mostly, It's Flattering To Meet Fans. As Long As It's In A Planned, Professional Meeting, Rather Than, Say, Someone Dropping By My Home, Which Is Not As Pleasant.

It's Different," You Said. "you've Made, Min, Everything Different For Me. Everything's Like Coffee You Made Me Try, Better Than I Ever - Or The Places I Didn't Even Know Were Right On The Street, You Know? I'm Like This Thing I Saw When I Was Little, Where A Kid Hears A Noise Under His Bed And There's A Ladder There That's Never Been There Before, And He Climbs Down And, It's For Kids I Know, But This Song Starts Playing..." Your Eyes Were Traveling In The Treey Light.

I Found Powerful The Idea That Everything We Have Is, In Effect, Stolen From Everybody Else.

I Think Pirates, Like Astronauts, Particularly For A Boy, Are Always Kind Of Worth Thinking About.

It Is Always Tedious When Someone Tells You That If You Don't Stop Crying, They Will Give You Something To Cry About, Because If You Are Crying Then You Already Have Something To Cry About, And So There Is No Reason For Them To Give You Anything Additional To Cry About, Thank You Very Much.

You Meet People Who Are In Pain In Life And Love And You Forgive Them For Behaving The Way They Do.

Someone Feeling Wronged Is Like Someone Feeling Thirsty. Don’t Tell Them They Aren’t. Sit With Them And Have A Drink.

She Gave Me A Hug And For A Second I Was Embraced By A Body That Makes Me Want To Go Home And Never Eat Again.

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.

When Things Don't Go Right, Go Left

When Do You Learn That The World, Like Any Diner Worth Its Salt, Is Open Twenty-four Hours A Day?

The Worst Surroundings In The World Can Be Tolerated If The People In Them Are Interesting And Kind.

Blank Paper Has Always Inspired Me.

There Are Some Things We Might Not Know,but That Doesnt Mean We Should Give Up.we Can Find Out What We Need To Know.we Can Find Out Everything

I Think If I Were Walking Someplace And I Saw A Corpse My Brain Would Tell Me It Was A Million Things Before I Believed It Was A Corpse.

The Expression "following Suit" Is A Curious One, Because It Has Nothing To Do With Walking Behind A Matching Set Of Clothing. If You Follow Suit, It Means You Do The Same Thing Somebody Else Has Just Done. If All Of Your Friends Decided To Jump Off A Bridge Into The Icy Waters Of An Ocean Or River, For Instance, And You Jumped In Right After Them, You Would Be Following Suit. You Can See Why Following Suit Can Be A Dangerous Thing To Do, Because You Could End Up Drowning Simply Because Somebody Else Thought Of It First.

I Stand Entwined In Fire On The Inextinguishable Bonfire Of Inconceivable Love.

I Don't Know Why Wicked Places Generally Look Wicked. You'd Think They'd Look Nice, To Fool People, But They Hardly Ever Do.

...in Life It Is Often The Tiny Details That End Up Being The Most Important.

Various Parts Of My Body Told Me That In The Future They Would Appreciate It If I Slept Lying Down On A Bed Instead Of Sitting At The Counter Of Black Cat Coffee. I Quietly Reassured Them That This Was An Unusual Situation, And Had The Machinery Make Me Some Bread As A Breakfast.

Don’t Repeat Yourself. It’s Not Only Repetitive, It’s Redundant, And People Have Heard It Before.

I Like To Think That I Get Better And Better As A Writer, But It Seems Pretty Easy To Me To Slip On Disguises Of Various People.

I Wore It, This Careless Thing You Don't Even Remember Giving To Me From Your Bag. It Wasn't A Gift, This Thing I'm Returning. It Was Barely A Gesture, Almost Forgotten Already, This Thing I Wore Like It Was Dear To Me. And It Was. No Wonder We Broke Up.

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.

Finding Yourself

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.

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.

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.

And What Might Seem To Be A Series Of Unfortunate Events May In Fact Be The First Steps Of A Journey.

Grinning Is Something You Do When You Are Entertained In Some Way, Such As Reading A Good Book Or Watching Someone You Don't Care For Spill Orange Soda All Over Themselves.

I Have This Fantasy That The Second Movie Would Begin With A Brief Statement By All Of The Young Actors Who Had Played The Children In The First Movie, Explaining How It Had Ruined Their Lives, So We Would Catch Up With Emily Browning Drinking Heavily In The Back Of A Burlesque Bar, And Maybe Liam Aiken Would Be Living Underneath A Bridge, And Then Instead Of The Twins Who Played Sunny, We Would Just Try To Find The Oldest Woman In The World, And Get An Interview With Her Sitting In A Trailer Park.

It Is Likely I Will Die Next To A Pile Of Things I Was Meaning To Read.

The Whole Thing Of What I’ve Been Trying,” You Said, “is That You’re Different, And You Keep Asking About The Other Girls, But What I Mean Is That I Don’t Think About Them, Because Of The Way You Are.

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.

When I Was Researching My Very First Novel, "the Basic Eight," I Was Calling Right-wing Political And Religious Organizations And Asking Them To Mail Me Their Material So That I Could Mock Them In My Novels.

-most People Would Say That She's Beautiful. -that's Because She's Been With Most People.

Dead Women Tell No Tales. Sad Men Write Them Down.

Desperation Is Like A Spilled Drink; Even If It's Delicious, No One Will Get Near It. Cultivate An Aura Of Glamorous Unapproachability.

The Violins Waltzed. The Cellos And Basses Provided Accompaniment. The Violas Mourned Their Fate, While The Concertmaster Showed Off. The Flutes Did Bird Imitations…repeatedly, And The Reed Instruments Had The Good Taste To Admire My Jacket. The Trumpets Held A Parade In Honor Of Our Great Nation, While The French Horns Waxed Nostalgic About Something Or Other. The Trombones Had Too Much To Drink. The Percussion Beat The Band, And The Tuba Stayed Home Playing Cards With His Landlady, The Harp, Taking Sips Of Warm Milk A Blue Little Cup. “but The Composer Is Still Dead.

A Library Is Like An Island In The Middle Of A Vast Sea Of Ignorance, Particularly If The Library Is Very Tall And The Surrounding Area Has Been Flooded.

This Is An Absurd Moral, For You And I Both Know That Sometimes Not Only Is It Good To Lie, It Is Necessary To Lie.

Take Back The Smile And The Night, Take It All Back, I Wish I Could.

You Should Never Stick Something That You Are Allergic To Into Your Mouth, Especially If That Thing Is Cats.

I Do What I Do," I Said, "in Order To Do Something Else.

I Always Think It's Silly When People Talk About Works Of Culture Taking Risks. Because There's Not Any Risk Involved.

Criminals Should Be Punished, Not Fed Pastries.

Trending Author

Category