Daniel Handler Quotes

When I was kid, they always used to tell me to keep notebooks. I look at my shelves now and it's just nothing but notebooks. And if I haven't gotten an idea but I have time to work, I'll pull one out and I bet there will be five or six sentences that will kick me off.

If there is anything that I think I might use later, I underline it.

It's not like I would see anyone and be like, "Oh yes, that person looks like maybe I had an impact on them." I don't think I did. I don't think I ever was that well known, to have an impact. And I haven't seen comics that I go, "Oh, yes! That person is terribly unprepared, with their notebook, and going off on 50 tangents. There you are. That's me."

Whenever something good happens, write it down. Buy a special notebook . . . and use it to list all the good in your life.

In my first class at the University of Kentucky, my American Literature professor came in, and the first sentence out of his mouth was "The central theme of American Literature is an attempt to reconcile what we've done to the New World." wrote that down in my notebook, and thought, "What is he talking about?" But that's what I think about now. The New World and what we've done to it.

I take pens and I write on the inside of my arm. When I'm with people and somebody says a really fascinating anecdote, or fact, or phrase, I'll write it on the inside of my arm. At the end of the day, I'll take the very best things that are on my arm and I'll copy them into a notebook that I always carry and only when the weather is absolutely terrible will I really key the very best of that notebook into the computer. At that point, it's all sort of censored twice - only the best things go from the arm to the book and only the best things go from the book to the computer.

I don't carry notebooks and I don't consciously store ideas. I try not to think that I am a writer and I am pretty good at doing that. I don't like writers, but then I don't like insurance salesmen either.

I think that the only way that you really keep it a secret is by not telling anyone.

I usually get my lyrics when I let my mind wander, when you're not really awake, but not yet fully asleep. I keep an open notebook by my bed and then just write whatever comes to me.

There is plenty of time to argue with new ideas later. They key is to take careful notes first and debate second.

I don't think I would have minded you being the keeper of my secrets.

I think our love can do anything we want it to.

I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.

A dull head thinks of no better way to show himself wise, than by suspecting everything in his way.

Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes.

I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.

Always carry a notebook. And I mean always.

She nodded, jotting something in her notebook. You’re writing that down? Has the interview started?” Lee, whenever you’re talking to a reporter, you’re being interviewed.

I've been poked fun of throughout my career by fellow actors for my notes that I take. I have spiral notebooks that I carry with me on every project I do, and I take notes just so that if I have to relive a scene, if I have to go back, I know what I did.

He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.

I think I like 'em better like that...divinely dull...just the quiet bearers of their own beauty, like the priestesses in a Panathenaic procession.

Sometimes strange and wonderful things will pop into my head. And sometimes I will see something in the world that is the beginning of a story. I always have a notebook with me so that I can write down what I see and hear.

People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes

The prospect Smiler was a manic farmer. Few men I think can have been as unfortunate as he; for on the one hand he was a melancholic with a loathing for mankind, on the other, some paralysis had twisted his mouth into a permanent and radiant smile. So everyone he met, being warmed by his smile, would shout him a happy greeting. And beaming upon them with his sunny face he would curse them all to hell.

I lost you once, I think I can do it again.