Daniel Handler

“For every girl I thought I was uncomplicated sex, it wasn't. Put it this way: if you can't see the complication, you're probably it.”

“He thought she knew what he meant, but the biggest mistake you can make is thinking they know what you mean.”

“She was all the world’s money, and I would spend it with her, my sharpest friend who changed the tide, my only comfort from the brutal gamble of the world and the wicked ways of men.”

“I think books that are meant to be read in the nighttime ought to confront the very fears that we're trying to think about.”

“I like writing for movies. It's nice to be alone working on fiction in your room, and then it's nice to be in a room with a bunch of people working on a movie.”

“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 winked, took the change. I should have seen it, Ed, as a sign that you were unreliable. Instead, I saw it as a sign of charming, which is why I didn't break it off right then and there.”

“I kind of always think my work is unfilmable, and when I meet people who are interested in filming it, I'm always stunned.”

“I'm always interested to see what films are made of books. I kind of don't participate as a filmgoer in any kind of debate about what's better, the book or the movie. So I think it's interesting when people want to do it.”

“Any playlist without Prince is no friend of mine.”

“No, when you love someone you spend hours and hours with them, and even the mightiest forces in the netherworld could not say whether the hours you spend increase your love or if you simply spend more hours with someone as your love increases.”

“This is how it is in life and love. In life and love we are with people for a while, and then we join other people, people we have not met, and we walk with them, and we leave behind all the things we used to be. Sometimes we leave people behind too... This happens everyday. Everyday this happens and scarcely anybody cares.”

“I'm writing it in a letter, the whole truth of why it happened. And the truth is that I goddamn loved you so much.”

“I'm dumping the whole box back into your life Ed, every item of you and me. I'm dumping this box on your porch, Ed, but it's you, Ed, who is getting dumped.”

“It will be a very long time before I trust you ever, ever - OK, I trust you again.”

“I was not a particularly brave child, I think, because I had a narrative mind, because my mind automatically went to any terrible thing that could happen.”

“There are so many movies like this, where you thought you were smarter than the screen but the director was smarter than you, of course he's the one, of course it was a dream, of course she's dead, of course, it's hidden right there, of course it's the truth and you in your seat have failed to notice in the dark.”

“The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up.”

“Everything else has vanished, so you take them now. Maybe if you're the one keeping them, I'll be the one feeling better.”

“I guess it's funny how life turns out?" she tried. "Not last I checked," Errol said with a snort.”