Daniel Handler Quotes

When men think much, they can rarely decide.

It seems like I'm thinking 400 hours a day; that's kind of how it feels.

Do you always think this much? It's just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.

There are times when thinking about something is the worst possible policy.

I think too much during my day-to-day life; I'm the guy who worries about everything.

It's easy to start over-thinking things and over-analysing things.

Most of the problems in life are because of two reasons, we act without thinking or we keep thinking without acting.

It would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns...It goes, it goes ... and there's no end to it. It's worse than the rest because I feel responsible and have complicity in it. For example, this sort of painful rumination: I exist, I am the one who keeps it up. I.

But why do I notice everything? She thought. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wanted to force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came.

Sometimes too much thinking leads to the Death of Doing

I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.

Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.

If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you'll never make it.

I don’t want to start thinking again. Not like I have this last week. I can’t think again. Not ever again.

Someone shouts, "Enough!" and I think too much and nothing at all.

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.

My trouble is I analyze life instead of live it.

If I think, everything is lost.

I think the worst decision is usually no decision. If you make the wrong decision you can usually course-correct, but if you don't make it, you've already made it, and it's usually the bad one.

Overthinking is often a product of underdoing.

I have no brakes on...analysis is for those who are paralyzed by life.

But down through the centuries, man has developed a mind that separates him from the world of reality, the world of natural laws. This mind tries too hard, wears itself out, and ends up weak and sloppy. Such a mind, even if of high intelligence, is inefficient. It drives down the street in a fast-moving car and thinks its at the store, going over a grocery list. Then it wonders why accidents occur.

I was frequently told at drama school that I was thinking too much.

I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.

Thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant.