A Quote by Daniel Handler

Occasionally there are parents who say, "I brought my child so he or she could learn what the career of a writer is like, and you did this long theatrical performance instead, and I'm very disappointed."
There was a very slight chance she might actually kill him that way, and if she did, she’d be brought up on charges. Unless, of course, she could prove harmful intent. She could see it now. See, Your Honor, he was going to f*ck me silly, make me like it.
My mum was an actor until she started having children. I was the first child, so in a way I was the end of her acting career, which hopefully she's forgiven me for. She's still watches my show every week. It's funny because I didn't grow up in a household that felt like a theatrical household. My dad did a normal job and my mum had given up. But when I decided to try and do it - it wasn't the most alien concept.
A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so.
The only language she could speak was grief. How could he not know that? Instead, she said, "I love you." She did. She loved him. But even that didn't feel like anything anymore.
I have three brothers and one sister, and I'm the third child. Sometimes people say, 'It's only natural you would become a writer - your parents were English professors.' But my four siblings were brought up in the exact same household, and no one else became a writer or an English professor.
Every child has to disobey the father. Unless a child disobeys the father he never becomes mature. It is nothing, original, it is very simple and natural. It is very psychological. There comes an age when every child has to say NO to the parents. If he does not say no to the parents he will not have a spine; he will be spineless. If he cannot say no to the parents, he will be a slave his whole life. He will never attain to individuality.
At the end of my career, am I going to say I did well, but I didn't give it my all? I'd be very, very angry with myself if I didn't give 100 percent. If I gave my all and I got to whatever point in the world, I could look back and at least I say I did the best I could.
Ask your child for information in a gentle, nonjudgmental way, with specific, clear questions. Instead of “How was your day?” try “What did you do in math class today?” Instead of “Do you like your teacher?” ask “What do you like about your teacher?” Or “What do you not like so much?” Let her take her time to answer. Try to avoid asking, in the overly bright voice of parents everywhere, “Did you have fun in school today?!” She’ll sense how important it is that the answer be yes.
I've learned to think in terms of having a long career. Actors can have very long careers that last until the day we die, but there will be moments when you'll feel like you're a failure or when you're disappointed in yourself.
Early in my school career, I turned out to be an incorrigible disciplinary problem. I could understand what the teacher was saying as fast as she could say it, I found time hanging heavy, so I would occasionally talk to my neighbor. That was my great crime, I talked in school.
When speaking to parents, I encourage them to take their child(ren) to a children's museum and watch carefully what the child does, how she/she does it, what he/she returns to, where there is definite growth. Teachers could do the same or could set up 'play areas' which provide 'nutrition' for different intelligences... and watch carefully what happens and what does not happen with each child.
I was quietly rebellious. My parents thought I was very good but secretly I did things like saying I was staying in one place and going somewhere else instead. My older sister was openly rebellious and would tell my parents where to go, but I never did that.
To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement-it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writer's build their own realities, move into them and occasionally send letters home. The only difference between a writer and a crazy person is that a writer gets paid for it.
When parents say, "I wish my child did not have autism," what they’re really saying is, "I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different [nonautistic] child instead." Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.
Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child's world: the parent.
At the very worst, if I have a short-lived career, at least I could say I sparked a change - that I inspired some leniency in what people accept in hip-hop. And if I have a very long career and can be gyrating in a leotard at 35, that would be great.
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