I'm nothing, not a single thing. The only particle I had, the only tiny thing raising me up, is that I was Ed Slater ton's girlfriend, loved by you for like ten secs, and who cares, so what, and not anymore so how embarrassing for me.

— Daniel Handler

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.

— Daniel Handler

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

— Daniel Handler

I write every day weekdays for about 5 hours, mostly longhand on legal pads. It has gotten neither harder nor easier, sadly or happily.

— Daniel Handler

I write longhand on legal pads, about half at home and half in cafés. I drink a lot of water and eat a lot of raw carrots.

— Daniel Handler

Maybe, generations ago, young people rebelled out of some clear motive, but now, we know we’re rebelling. Between teen movies and sex-ed textbooks we’re so ready for our rebellious phase we can’t help but feel it’s safe, contained. It will turn out all right, despite the risk, snug in the shell of rebellion narrative. Rebellion narrative, does that make sense? It was appropriate to do, so we did it.

— Daniel Handler

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.

— Daniel Handler

Phillip Murray and Wanda Saxon meet in the last scene under the rainy awning, their wrong wife and fiancé finally story-lined away, and walk out together into the downpour - we know from the first scene, Christmas Eve, that both of them like walking in the rain but don't have anybody who will do it with them - and it's the miracle of the ending.

— Daniel Handler

Phil Needle stood in the parking lot, suddenly grasping that this was so, that nothing is lost in a world utterly mapped, that nothing is rogue with everything cross-pollinated, as the shouts on the beach lured him across the street to the sand.

— Daniel Handler

She had the look in her eye when you kick and kick at the door, and it doesn't open, when you write a boy letters and letters, and he never loves you, not ‘til the day he dies. Not even then.

— Daniel Handler