Daniel Handler Quotes

In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

Custom is often only the antiquity of error.

Cultures grow on the vine of tradition.

...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

Traditions are neither good nor bad, they simply are... Rationality is not an arbiter of traditions, it is itself a tradition or an aspect of a tradition.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

Where I come from," said Archie, "a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her." "Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean," said Samad tersely, "that it is a good idea.

The odd thing about tradition is, the longer it's been going, the more people seem to take it seriously - as though sheer passage of time makes something which to begin with was just made up, turns it into what people believe as a fact.

When you're writing historical fiction, you have to think a little farther into the situation: what the average social interactions were, what was acceptable behavior. What did people think was fun, what did they find unhappy, and why?

Americans are locked into our traditions.

Casting judgments is an integral feature of what makes us human.

I want to know what people thought and what they wore and what they ate for breakfast.

Just because something exists in the society, it doesn't mean it has to be correct.

The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.

But to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom, More honored in the breach than the observance.

Many people who attack me know so little of that larger Tradition, and end up being not very traditional at all. When you invoke the whole and great Tradition, you end up scaring people who call 1950 America "traditional" Christianity. It is just what they are used to in their one limited lifetime.

Our children must follow in our footsteps; after all, we are older and know about the world.

Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette.

If you go back 150 years you are a reactionary; but if you go back 1000 years, you are in the foremost ranks of progress.

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.

Tradition simply means that we need to end what began well and continue what is worth continuing

You can't take treasured beliefs from the past and mock them.

Whenever one honestly defies a tradition, one becomes, in reality, the more responsible to it.

Do not act following customary beliefs.

Customs will often outlive the remembrance of their origin.