Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Daniel Handler

Quote by Daniel Handler

“A universally loved rebel, an immensely popular loner, the imaginary writer is everyone's favorite, if only because you don't have to read anything to appreciate their work, although I must say I prefer their earlier stuff.”

Quote by Daniel Handler

Work

And Then? And Then? What Else?

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler, born on February 28, 1970, is an accomplished American author known for his unique literary style and thought-provoking themes. His works have won the hearts of readers worldwide. more

You May Also Like

“Hear that lonesome whistle blowing/'cross the trestle' John Mercer would write to Arlen's music, and suddenly Tin Pan Alley seemed to contain railway yards and bus depots that hadn't been there before. 'It's a quarter to three/there's no one in the place except you and me,' writes Mercer also, and Arlen's music conveys all the solitude of a roadhouse in the outback, as far from Johnny's Savannah' social register as it is from the Arluck parlor. Both Mercer and Arlen saw this other America as clearly as the half-British Raymond Chandler saw Los Angeles, with the freshness and sharpness of outsiders, and their songs constitute priceless social documents.”

“Like Jerry taught us,” Ryan said sagely, “Wise man say, ‘Inside the fence, it’s a dog. Outside the fence, it’s a wolf’.” The others nodded, and Fiona just looked at Rossi sadly.”

“Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.”

“My stomach gave a violent start and turned into a hunk of ice. The world was spinning around me, and blobs of faces and visions of things past were dancing in the red mist that covered the lot. It swirled into a mass of colors and I felt myself swaying on my feet. Someone cried, "Glory, look at the kid!" And the ground rushed up to meet me very suddenly.”

“Some of us feel as if we’re outsiders. People occasionally talk about us in hushed tones, whispering that we’re a bit of a lone wolf, or at times a loose cannon. They don’t want to say it to our faces because every now and again we can be a little bit unpredictable. But they look at us with a strange curiosity, because in comparison – although they’re often very successful at ‘fitting in’ – they lead lives that are drab, dreary and monotonous. They’re not unruly like the Carefree Scamps. We have a divine spark of unruliness within us. And it’s that unruliness which has kept us young.”