Daniel Handler
There was still plenty of water in the basement, and I felt it soaking me from the knees on down. If someone wanted to torture me until I told them a critical piece of information, all they would have to do is get my socks wet. It feels terrible.Collection: Water
Hello, freaky peoples!Collection: Hello
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.Collection: Song
All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Beautiful
Reader: Dear Mr. Snicket, What is the best way to keep a secret? Lemony Snicket : Tell it to everyone you know, but pretend you are kidding.Collection: Secret
Everything else has vanished, so you take them now. Maybe if you're the one keeping them, I'll be the one feeling better.Collection: Feel Better
I love no one but you, I have discovered, but you are far away and I am here alone. Then this is my life and maybe, however unlikely, I'll find my way back there. Or maybe, one day, I'll settle for second best. And on that same day, hell will freeze over, the sun will burn out and the stars will fall from the sky.Collection: Relationship
One's home is like a delicious piece of pie you order in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening - the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life - and can never find again. After you leave home, you may find yourself feeling homesick, even if you have a new home that has nicer wallpaper and a more efficient dishwasher than the home in which you grew up.Collection: Country
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'.Collection: Goodbye
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.Collection: Jobs
It is a lonely feeling when someone you care about becomes a stranger.Collection: Lonely
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.Collection: People
Tell it to everyone you know, but pretend you're kidding.Collection: Knows
This world is suchier than we are, and the best thing to do is keep moving and find your keys.Collection: Moving
There is only laughing across the land as the car moves you along, on your way someplace with love in the car.Collection: Moving
I waited just to see you at that kind of peace, I wanted to be beside you, I wanted you to wake up slowly or startle, or just half awaken and turn over or murmur my name. I wanted to watch you forever, or sleep beside you forever, or sleep forever while you woke and watched me, something forever anyway. I wanted to kiss you, rumple your hair, rest three fingertips on your hip bone warm and smooth, wake you that way or hush you back to sleep.Collection: Sleep
The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up. Like a tie at a tag sale, some perfect thing in a crate of nothing, you were just there, uninvited, and now suddenly the party was over and you were all I wanted. I hadn't even been looking, not for you, and now you were my heart's desire.Collection: Party
Troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them.Collection: Matter
If everyone fought fire with fire, the whole world would go up in smoke.Collection: Fire
It doesn't take courage to kill someone,' Klaus said. 'It takes a severe lack of moral stamina.Collection: Moral
Put your hair up, Min. The secret ingredient is not your hair.Collection: Hair
Never mind what my name is,” the man said. “No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.Collection: Men
Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.Collection: Feelings
We need things, and the opposite of them, and we are so rarely completely comfortable.Collection: Opposites
I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.Collection: Love You
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.Collection: Wall
We laughed the rest of the way, because the point of this story is, it is not the cookies. It is the love.Collection: Cookies
This is love if it's not with you, a terrible fiery something that makes people look away, and it feels like a punch in the throat.Collection: People
It is not the diamonds or the birds, the people or the potatoes, it is not any of the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. It is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe.Collection: People
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.Collection: Ocean
'Help me,' Allison says, but she is soft-spoken, and everyone she loves is so far away.Collection: Love Is
Love is candy from a stranger, but it's candy you've had before and it probably won't kill you.Collection: Love Is
Who are you?" Violet asked. It is confusing to fall asleep in the daytime and wake up at night. "what are you doing with Uncle Monty's reptiles?" Klaus asked. It is also confusing to realize you have been sleeping on stairs, rather than in a bed or sleeping bag. "Dixnik?" Sunny asked. It is always confusing why anyone would choose to wear a plaid shirt.Collection: Uncles
I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them.Collection: Karma
It was a secret time and place, you next to me, untraceable and out of this worldCollection: Secret
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.Collection: Home
Off with you" is a phrase used by people who lack the curtesy to say something more polite, such as, "if there's nothing else you require I must be going" or "I'm sorry but I'm going to have to ask you to leave, please" or even "excuse me but I believe you have mistaken my home for your own and my valuable belongings for yours and I must ask you to return the items in question to me and leave my home after untying me from this chair, as I'm unable to do it myself, if it's not too much trouble.Collection: Sorry
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.Collection: Inspirational
For Beatrice, our love broke my heart, and stopped yours.Collection: Heart
Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.Collection: People
Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.Collection: People
To stutter through it with you or even stop stuttering and say nothing, was so lucky and soft, better talk than mile-a-minute with anyone. After a few minutes we’d stop rattling, we’d adjust, we’d settle in, and the conversation would speed into the night.Collection: Night
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.Collection: Relief
Make sure you have your own mask on, before helping others with theirs.Collection: Helping Others
There are secrets everywhere. I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them.Collection: Thinking
The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done.Collection: Miracle
Just about everybody has written a first novel that they throw away before writing their actual first novel.Collection: Writing
I was too jitterbuggy happy to sleep, and the whole day kept playing in my brain's little screening room.Collection: Sleep