Daniel Handler Quotes

It's funny, because people always say when they meet me, having read me - or they read me, having met me - that they are struck by how the tone is pretty similar, in real life and in the books.

I understand people have preconceived notions of who I am or what I do. But I do find it a bit bizarre that people find it bizarre that I've grown up.

I'd like to get my public image nearer to my reality. People have a lot of misconceptions.

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.

A lot of writers dwell on their relationships with their mothers, but only a few are worth reading.

Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight.

In terms of the way people see me, it breaks down into two very clear and distinct groups: those who think they know me from reading the papers and those who really know me by reading my books.

I don't believe that my first name is Leo or that my last name is Tolstoy. I'm a storyteller.

If I claim I'm the opposite of my characters, then it'll just sound awful. But I tend to write the sort of things I'd never say because I'm not a very forceful person.

I liked Hemingway better before I began to be called 'Hemingwayesque.'

Of Dickens' style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules... No young novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens.

I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice.

I'd go for "really great writer." Although I don't think I am. I know I have a style which is recognizable. I think you can see Terry Pratchett in every book. I like doing it. I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that's it.

Fundamentally a good author has his or her own sense of style. There is a natural, deep voice, and that voice is present from the first draft of a manuscript. When he or she elaborates on the initial manuscript, it continues to strengthen and simplify that natural, deep voice.

Hemingway sucks. If I set out to write that way, it would have been been hollow and lifeless because it wasn't me.

I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am.

When people come up to me expecting me to be just like what they thought a Beatle would be, they're disappointed. I never was a Beatle, except musically. I don't think any of us was. What is a Beatle anyway? I'm not a Beatle or an ex-Beatle or even the George Harrison. I'm just a man. Very ordinary.

Being an actress, it's hard to publish things without people thinking everything is autobiographical.

It doesn't surprise me that people can't see beyond my image. It's amazing, but I can understand it. That's what image is for. But it's never a problem for me. It's only a problem for them. I don't really care. I do what I want regardless.

I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture.

Don't scatter your fire! You are a prose writer: stick to your own tool!

I'm not in the business of making us look clean, but I don't want us to look like monsters either. I think there is a little bit of hero and villain in all of us.

The French make two mistakes about me. They think I'm an intellectual because I wear these glasses and they think I'm an artist because my films lose money.

I write five, six days a week. The thing is capturing the voice. I feel like I've been perfecting one voice - in different iterations, sure, but the Russian-ness has always been the undercurrent.