Daniel Handler Quotes

My radar, after all these years of sanity, is still off when it comes to what people do or don't mean.

It does grieve me to think there are people misunderstanding my heart on an issue.

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

Make it your profitable habit to carefully study facial expressions. You can see the entire human drama in a face; you can tell its owner's history.

Feel provides an important channel of information.

I'm very sensitive. I remember, as a kid at school, if someone in the classroom was sad or angry, it could have a great impact on me.

As a kid you can sense fear, love happiness very easily.

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand.

Hate is love without enough data.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

Admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding. ~Sosuke Aizen

Reynie's fce fell. 'It's not funny, Kate.' For a moment - a fleeting moment - Kate looked desperately sad. 'Well, of course it's not funny, Reynie Muldoon. But what do you want me to do? Cry?

But I saw the pain and sadness in everything, and swirled it round my mouth like a fine wine.

Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.

Falling in love with someone doesn’t mean you know any better how they feel. It only means you know how you feel.

Never assume people's motives. It's the easiest way to find yourself upset over nothing or misjudging people

Emotional intelligence grows through perception. Look around at your present situation and observe it through the level of feeling.

I tell myself that I know you, and then when I think about it, I realize that I don't.

The important thing is not whatever nonsense the voices are saying, but what the voices are feeling.

Take the emotional temperature of those listening to you. Facial expressions, voice inflection and posture give clues to a person's mood and attitude.

A letter is a risky thing; the writer gambles on the reader's frame of mind.

it is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers.

I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —

Linda seemed to recognize loneliness. Possibly she could see it sitting opposite her, sipping lager and trying not to lose its temper. It was an illness, loneliness-it made you weak, gullible, feebleminded.

Do you know, André, I sometimes think that you have no heart.' 'Presumably because I sometimes betray intelligence.