Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler
Daniel Handleris an American writer and journalist. He is best known for his work under the pen name Lemony Snicket, having published children's series A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions under this pseudonym. He has also published adult novels under his real name; his first book The Basic Eight was rejected by many publishers for its dark subject matter. His most recent book is We Are Pirates. Handler has also played the accordion in several bands...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 February 1970
CitySan Francisco, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I didn't like books where people played on a sports team and won a bunch of games, or went to summer camp and had a wonderful time. I really liked a book where a witch might cut a child's head off or a pack of angry dogs might burst through a door and terrorize a family.
The expression 'Those who can't do, teach' is a curious one, because if you look at the world , you'll see that teachers aren't particularly worse at doing things than anyone else, so perhaps the expression might be better worded as 'nobody can do anything
The sea is nothing but a library of all the tears in history.
Tea should be as bitter as wormwod and as sharp as a two eged sword Kit Snicket (a series of unfortunate events)
Most schools have a loud system of loud bells, which startle the students and teachers at regular intervals and remind them that time is passing even more slowly than it seems.
There was something I was always very good at, however, and that was teaching myself not to be frightened while frightening things are going on. It is difficult to do this, but I had learned. It is simply a matter of putting one’s fear aside, like the vegetable on the plate you don’t want to touch until all of your rice and chicken are gone, and getting frightened later, when one is out of danger. Sometimes I imagine I will be frightened for the rest of my life because of all of the fear I put aside during my time in Stain’d-by-the-Sea.
Tears are curious things, for like earthquakes or puppet shows, they can occur at any time, without any warning and without any good reason.
When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.
I was interested in finding ways to do dark comedy that were actually dark and comic.
I listen to Morricone, the famed Italian film composer, while I'm working.
My first novel took almost six years to sell and was rejected 37 times in the interim, and then finally sold for the smallest amount of money my literary agent had ever negotiated for a work of fiction.
I write every day weekdays for about 5 hours, mostly longhand on legal pads. It has gotten neither harder nor easier, sadly or happily.
I write longhand on legal pads, about half at home and half in cafes. I drink a lot of water and eat a lot of raw carrots.
You see failed vocabulary in the adult world so often, and it's often because once you reach a certain age you're kind of embarrassed to go look up a word if you don't know what it means.