Daniel Handler
Today was a very cold and bitter day, as cold and bitter as a cup of hot chocolate, if the cup of hot chocolate had vinegar added to it and were placed in a refrigerator for several hours.Collection: Chocolate
...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.Collection: Feel Better
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.Collection: Book
They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.Collection: Life
A successful villain should have all these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give up villainy altogether and try to lead a life of decency, integrity, and kindness, which is much more challenging and noble, if not always quite as exciting.Collection: Kindness
Anyone who thinks the pen is mightier than the sword has not been stabbed with both.Collection: Thinking
The trick to following someone without getting caught is to follow somebody who doesn't think they're being followed.Collection: Thinking
Do the scary thing first, and get scared later.Collection: Inspiration
Can't we sleep ten minutes more? I was having a lovely dream about sneezing without covering my mouth, and giving everybody germs.Collection: Dream
If you like books with happy endings then put this book down immediately.Collection: Book
After a certain age, you couldn't even say where you were from. You went someplace, and lived there. And then you went someplace else.Collection: Age
If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means 'flunk'.Collection: Good Night
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?Collection: Fall
If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives.Collection: People
In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a person who quotes great American novelists is anything but treacherous, and in general a man who says you needn't worry about money, or a man who smokes cigarettes, is somewhere in between.Collection: Men
All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.Collection: Book
But it's far too late for us; ring, hair, letters, photographs - all traces of our love will be scattered then, like an anagram.Collection: Hair
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.Collection: Wisdom
The real Santa Claus is at the mall.Collection: Christmas
Complimenting someone in an exaggerated way is known as flattery, and flattery will generally get you anything you want.Collection: Want
Appearance matters a great deal because you can often tell a lot about people by looking at how they present themselves.Collection: People
You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.Collection: Ocean
I know what is going on," said Sir. "I am the Boss! Of course I know!Collection: Boss
But I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.Collection: Relationship
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.Collection: Beautiful
No reality has the power to dispel a dream.Collection: Dream
When you need a haircut, it looks like you have no one to take care of you.Collection: Needs
Boredom is not black licorice, Snicket," she said. "There's no reason to share it with me.Collection: Boredom
This is love, and the trouble with it: it can make you embarrassed. Love is really liking someone a whole lot and not wanting to screw that up. Everybody's chewed over this. This unites us, this part of love.Collection: Love Is
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.Collection: Love
The right boys I always toss and the wrong ones I keep on top of me like paperweights.Collection: Boys
Anyone who gives you a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven is a friend for life.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: Interesting
Young writers should read books past bedtime and write things down in notebooks when they are supposed to be doing something else.Collection: Notebook
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.Collection: Hope
It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.Collection: Sleep
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.Collection: Miracle
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.Collection: Forever
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.Collection: Heart
I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms.Collection: Love You
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.Collection: People
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.Collection: Long
Sometimes when someone tells a ridiculous lie, it is best to ignore it entirely.Collection: Lying
Normally it is not polite to go into somebody’s room without knocking, but you can make an exception if the person is dead, or pretending to be dead.Collection: Rooms
Announcing your death should be like announcing that you are a lunar moth: It must be done quietly or it will not be believed.Collection: Done
Never look a gift lion in the mouth.Collection: Looks
Death is something you cannot escape, such as death, or a cheesecake that has curdled, both of which always turn up sooner later.Collection: Cheesecake
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.Collection: Might
People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.Collection: Life