Daniel Handler Quotes

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

The worst moment was when I was performing and I was about to sing, but I choked. I had a tickle in my throat and I started coughing, and I couldn't get the words out. It lasted for like thirty seconds, but I got over it, and luckily the crowd didn't seem to care.

The red carpet is really the only thing that makes me nervous.

I conquered my stage fright a long time ago. In my line of work, it's kind of a pre-requisite that you not feel bad about looking stupid in front of a lot of people.

I don't like to be me. I'm not so comfortable being me on screen because then I'd be a presenter. I'm not Jimmy Fallon.

I'm not good at interacting with people and am terrified to get onstage, so I just go up there, freak out and, most of the time, pack up and go home immediately after.

I feel like if I won an award and I was giving my speech and the music started, that's all I'd remember, the humiliation I felt when the music started. It would mar the entire experience for me.

I do still get extremely nervous before speeches. My biggest fear is that I'll be standing there in front of hundreds of people and be incapable of talking. I'm afraid that I'll make a complete fool of myself and be unable to go on.

In the summer after sixth grade, I took a class at St. Robert Bellarmine. My first role, I was the villain in a play, and I forgot all my lines. I think I cried my way through the performance.

I lost my temper on stage.

I've always thought of myself as so unsuited to be a frontman.

I'm really conflicted about my role as a front-person. I hate the attention.

I tell people that anything that could ever happen to you on stage has happened to me. My clothes have fallen off. I've fallen off the stage. I've gotten sick - anything.

I was really awful at auditions. There's something about sitting down and saying into the camera: 'I'm Nina and this is the name of my agent.' That makes me just die inside.

I'm like that person who hates going to magic shows - and I love magic, I love wizards - but going to a show where there is any possibility of audience participation is a nightmare for me.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

I was once doing an improv show and it was my turn to jump on stage and I fell on my face. It's a really terrible way to start a show.

The worst thing that ever happened to me on stage is someone ran forward to tell me they loved me and projectile vomited all over the stage. It was horrible.

Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator really did lose his virginity.

In a Congressional Hearing, when the red light of the television camera came on it had the effect of a full moon on weir wolves.

I always panic on the first day of work. You can do all the Stanislavsky-backstory homework, but when that moment arrives and you are in the clothes, hair, and makeup of somebody else, and you're saying the words created by somebody else - I never know how to do it. It's a complete mystery to me.

Most open-mic experiences I had were okay.

A couple of weeks ago, I did karaoke and got nervous in a way I hadn't gotten nervous in 25 years. I'm so used to getting on stage in front of strangers to tell jokes, but singing is a whole different animal.

It's embarrassing standing in front of the camera and getting your picture taken.

I have this fear of falling in front of large groups of people. That's why I tend not to wear heels.