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Grinning Is Something You Do When You Are Entertained In Some Way, Such As Reading A Good Book Or Watching Someone You Don't Care For Spill Orange Soda All Over Themselves.

-Daniel Handler

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Grinning Is Something You

Daniel Handler

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Grinning Is Something You Do When You Are Entertained In Some Way, Such As Reading A Good Book Or Watching Someone You Don't Care For Spill Orange Soda All Over Themselves.

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People Don't Always Get What They Deserve In This World.

One Wanders Through Life As If Wandering Through A Field In The Dark Of Night, Wearing A Blindfold And Very Heavy Shoes, With A Poisonous Toad Waiting Patiently Beneath A Clump Of Weeds, Knowing Full Well That Eventually You Will Step On Him.

It Is A Sad Truth In Life That When Someone Has Lost A Loved One, Friends Sometimes Avoid The Person, Just When The Presence Of Friends Is Most Needed.

But There Was More, As There Always Is When The Love Goes. She Was Haunted, Naturally. Otherwise What Is The Point, Why Leave Your Rickety House, And Why This Yo-yo World Giving Us Things And Yanking Them Back?

The Difference Between A House And A Home Is Like The Difference Between A Man And A Woman-- It Might Be Embarrassing To Explain, But It Would Be Very Unusual To Get Them Confused.

This Toast Feels Raw. Is It Safe To Eat Raw Toast?

Hello, Freaky Peoples!

A Bolt From The Blue.

As I Am Sure You Know, When People Say 'it's My Pleasure,' They Usually Mean Something Along The Lines Of, 'there's Nothing On Earth I Would Rather Do Less.' [...]

Klaus Sighed, And Opened A Book, And As At So Many Other Times When The Middle Baudelaire Child Did Not Want To Think About His Circumstances, He Began To Read.

Taking One’s Chances Is Like Taking A Bath, Because Sometimes You End Up Feeling Comfortable And Warm, And Sometimes There Is Something Terrible Lurking Around That You Cannot See Until It Is Too Late And You Can Do Nothing Else But Scream And Cling To A Plastic Duck.

An Apocryphal Story - The Word "apocryphal" Here Means "obviously Untrue" - Tells Of Two People, Long Ago, Who Were Very Bored, And That Instead Of Complaining About It They Sat Up All Night And Invented The Game Of Chess So That Everyone Else In The World, On Evenings When There Is Nothing To Do, Can Also Be Bored By The Perplexing And Tedious Game They Invented.

I Was So Grateful That Lemony Snicket Wasn't The Worst Movie Ever Made That I Overlooked Many Things That Might Have Otherwise Upset Me.

The Trouble With Talking About Irony Is, It's Such A Slippery Thing That The Second You Start Talking About It, You're A Better Example Of It Than You Are An Analyst.

So You’re Reluctant, I Said To Myself. Many, Many People Are Reluctant. It’s Like Having Feet. It’s Nothing To Brag About.

If You Like Books With Happy Endings Then Put This Book Down Immediately.

Tea Should Be As Bitter As Wormwod And As Sharp As A Two Eged Sword Kit Snicket (a Series Of Unfortunate Events)

No Reality Has The Power To Dispel A Dream.

The Worst Surroundings In The World Can Be Tolerated If The People In Them Are Interesting And Kind.

Someone Can Break Your Heart, Leave You Dead On The Lawn, And Still You Never Learn What To Say To Stop It All Over Again.

This Is Love If It's Not With You, A Terrible Fiery Something That Makes People Look Away, And It Feels Like A Punch In The Throat.

Normally It Is Not Polite To Go Into Somebody’s Room Without Knocking, But You Can Make An Exception If The Person Is Dead, Or Pretending To Be Dead.

Siblings That Say They Never Fight Are Most Definitely Hiding Something

Hiding Something

...there's Nothing Wrong With Occasionally Staring Out The Window And Thinking Nonsense, As Long As The Nonsense Is Yours.

Arguing With Somebody Is Never Pleasant, But Sometimes It Is Useful And Necessary To Do So.

If Only Uncle Monty Knew What We Know," Violet Said, "and Stephano Knew That He Knew What We Know. But Uncle Monty Doesn't Know What We Know, And Stephano Knows That He Doesn't Know What We Know." "i Know," Klause Said. "i Know You Know," Violet Said

The Story Of The Baudelaires Takes Place In A Very Real World, Where Some People Are Laughed At Just Because They Have Something Wrong With Them, And Where Children Can Find Themselves All Alone In The World, Struggling To Understand The Mystery That Surrounds Them.

There Are Almost As Many Kinds Of Libraries As There Are Kinds Of Readers.

I First Told The Idea To An Editor I Had Met Who, After Reading One Of My Novels For Adults That Was Set In A High School, Had An Idea That I Might Write Something For Children.

We All Know Of Course, That We Should Never Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Ever Fiddle Around In Any Way With Electrical Equipment. Never.

For Beatrice- When We Were Together I Felt Breathless. Now You Are.

Waiting Is One Of Life’s Hardships.

Stealing, Of Course, Is A Crime, And A Very Impolite Thing To Do. But Like Most Impolite Things, It Is Excusable Under Certain Circumstances. Stealing Is Not Excusable If, For Instance, You Are In A Museum And You Decide That A Certain Painting Would Look Better In Your House, And You Simply Grab The Painting And Take It There. But If You Were Very, Very Hungry, And You Had No Way Of Obtaining Money, It Would Be Excusable To Grab The Painting, Take It To Your House, And Eat It.

It Is Always Cruel To Laugh At People, Of Course, Although Sometimes If They Are Wearing An Ugly Hat It Is Hard To Control Yourself.

Tears Are Curious Things, For Like Earthquakes Or Puppet Shows, They Can Occur At Any Time, Without Any Warning And Without Any Good Reason.

Like A Lot Of People Whose Children Were Small In The 2000s, I Read [daniel Handler] Books Out Loud And I Loved Them.

But The Law Is An Odd Thing. For Instance, One Country In Europe Has A Law That Requires All Its Bakers To Sell Bread At The Exact Same Price. A Certain Island Has A Law That Forbids Anyone From Removing Its Fruit. And A Town Not Too Far From Where You Live Has A Law That Bars Me From Coming Within Five Miles Of Its Borders.

What Do Your Parents Know, About Surviving?

Just Because Something Is Traditional Is No Reason To Do It, Of Course. Piracy, For Example, Is A Tradition That Has Been Carried On For Hundreds Of Years, But That Doesn't Mean We Should All Attack Ships And Steal Their Gold.

Or Why You Are Wearing A Picture Of Santa Clause On You Shirts, But-” “it’s Herman Melville.

Everything. A Letter May Be Coded, And A Word May Be Coded. A Theatrical Performance May Be Coded, And A Sonnet May Be Coded, And There Are Times When It Seems The Entire World Is In Code. Some Believe That The World Can Be Decoded By Performing Research In A Library. Others Believe That The World Can Be Decoded By Reading A Newspaper. In My Case, The Only Thing That Made Sense Of The World Was You, And Without You The World Will Seem As Garbled And Tragic As A Malfunctioning Typewrit9.

I Love No One But You, I Have Discovered, But You Are Far Away And I Am Here Alone.

Long Distance Relationship

I Find Reading Screenplays Difficult, As They're Only A Roadmap For What A Movie Might End Up Being.

It Is Always Terrible To Be Told To Go Play With People One Doesn't Know.

Troublesome Things Tend To Remain Troublesome No Matter How Many Times You Do Them.

I'd Written My First Novel For Adults, Which Was Called Basic Eight And Was Set In A High School, And We Were Having A Devil Of A Time Selling It. It Ended Up In The Hands Of An Editor Of A Children's Publishing House, For Which It Was Entirely Inappropriate. She Said, "well, We Can't Publish This, But I Think You Should Write Something For Children," Which I Thought Was A Really Terrible Idea.

Complimenting Someone In An Exaggerated Way Is Known As Flattery, And Flattery Will Generally Get You Anything You Want.

If I Were To Say, "yes, I Am A Fascinating, Erudite Person," What Would That Say About Me? I Don't Know.

Sometimes, Even The Best Of Plans Will Occur To You When It Is Too Late.

This Is An Absurd Moral, For You And I Both Know That Sometimes Not Only Is It Good To Lie, It Is Necessary To Lie.

Frustration Is An Interesting Emotional State, Because It Tends To Bring Out The Worst In Whoever Is Frustrated.

The Idea That The Curtain Rises On What Is Often More Or Less A Happy Scene, And It Will Fall Just A Few Hours Later, And Everyone Will Be Dead Or Have Gone Mad... I Find That Kind Of Narrative Very Appealing.

They Say Love's Like A Bus, And If You Wait Long Enough Another One Will Come Along, But Not In This Place Where The Buses Are Slow And Most Of The Cute Ones Are Gay.

It Seems To Me That Oftentimes In Young Relationships Once There's A Problem Of Some Significance Then It's Almost Like They're Both Racing For The Dumper Buzzer.

There Are Many Difficult Things In This World To Hide, But A Secret Is Not One Of Them.

But We Can Also Ask For Something We Are Much More Likely To Get, And That Is To Find A Person Or Two, Somewhere In Our Travels, Who Will Tell Us That We Are Noble Enough, Whether It Is True Or Not. We Can Ask For Someone Who Will Say, “you Are Noble Enough,” And Remind Us Of Our Good Qualities When We Have Forgotten Them, Or Cast Them Into Doubt.

I'd Finished The First Two [books] And They Were Going To To Be Published, And [editor] Said, "we Need You To Write A Summary That Will Drive People To These Books." And It Took Forever. I Couldn't Think Of A Thing To Say. I Looked At The Back Of Other Children's Books That Were Full Of Giddy Praise And Corny Rhetorical Questions, You Know, "will She Have A Better Time At Summer Camp Than She Thinks?" "how Will She Escape From The Troll's Dungeon?" All These Terrible, Terrible Summaries Of Books, And I Just Couldn't.

...that's Not Why We Broke Up. I Love It, I Miss It, I Hate To Give It Back To You, This Complicated Thing, It's Why We Stayed Together

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."

Never, Under Any Circumstances, Let The Virginian Wolfsnake Near A Typewriter.

Back In The Late '90s, A Writer Named Daniel Handler Decided That Kids Books Were Too Cheerful. I Mean, All The "harry Potter" Series Did Was Occasionally Kill Off Major Characters. Thus Was Born "a Series Of Unfortunate Events" And Its Mysterious Author, Lemony Snicket. "a Series Of Unfortunate Events" Is Now A Great New Series On Netflix.

Let’s Go, Let’s Go Together Toward Something Extraordinary And I Started Making Plans, Thinking We Would Get That Far.

One Of The World's Most Tiresome Questions Is What Object One Would Bring To A Desert Island,because People Always Answer "a Deck Of Cards" Or "anna Karenina" When The Obvious Answer Is "a Well Equipped Boat And A Crew To Sail Me Off The Island And Back Home Where I Can Play All The Card Games And Read All The Russian Novels I Want.

Well-read People Are Less Likely To Be Evil.

How Can Someone So Wonderful Do Something So Terrible?

The Edith Head Trio, I Would Say, Would Be Even Less Of A Musical Career Than Playing The Accordion, Particularly Because I Played The Accordion In The Edith Head Trio. I'm Very Impressed By Your Googling. The Edith Head Trio And Another Band, Tzamboni, Were Two Bands I Was In After College That Played At Tiny Clubs To Little Acclaim. Our Gypsy Tango Version Of "when Doves Cry" Was Our Biggest Hit.but We Were Not Destined For Greatness.

They Didn't Understand It, But Like So Many Unfortunate Events In Life, Just Because You Don't Understand It Doesn't Mean It Isn't So.

Simply Put, Dramatic Irony Is When A Person Makes A Harmless Remark, And Someone Else Who Hears It Knows Something That Makes The Remark Have A Different, And Usually Unpleasant, Meaning. For Instance, If You Were In A Restaurant And Said Out Loud, "i Can't Wait To Eat The Veal Marsala I Ordered," And There Were People Around Who Knew That The Veal Marsala Was Poisoned And That You Would Die As Soon As You Took A Bite, Your Situation Would Be One Of Dramatic Irony.

To Stutter Through It With You Or Even Stop Stuttering And Say Nothing, Was So Lucky And Soft, Better Talk Than Mile-a-minute With Anyone. After A Few Minutes We’d Stop Rattling, We’d Adjust, We’d Settle In, And The Conversation Would Speed Into The Night.

Miracles Are Like Meatballs, Because Nobody Can Exactly Agree On What They Are Made Of, Where They Come From, Or How Often They Should Appear.

It Is Often Said That Reading Is A Gift, But To My Mind That Is An Insufficient Description, For The Size Of The Gift Of Reading Is So Vast That It Is Difficult To See What Is Outside Its Wrapping.

I Don't Know Why Wicked Places Generally Look Wicked. You'd Think They'd Look Nice, To Fool People, But They Hardly Ever Do.

Everybody Will Die, But Very Few People Want To Be Reminded Of That Fact.

The Basic Eight And Watch Your Mouth Both Have First-person Voices, And I Ended Up Investigating Those Voices And Investing So Much In Them That I Think Many People Took Them More Seriously Than They Ought To Have.

The World Is Quiet Here.

I Am Certain That Over The Course Of Your Own Life, You Have Noticed That People's Rooms Reflect Their Personalities. In My Room, For Instance, I Have Gathered A Collection Of Objects That Are Important To Me, Including A Dusty Accordion On Which I Can Play A Few Sad Songs, A Large Bundle Of Notes On The Activities Of The Baudelaire Orphans, And A Blurry Photograph, Taken A Very Long Time Ago, Of A Woman Whose Name Is Beatrice. These Are Items That Are Very Precious And Dear To Me.

They Looked At Each Other Like A Pair Of Parentheses.

The Sea Is Nothing But A Library Of All The Tears In History.

The Children Of This World And The Adults Of This World Are In Entirely Separate Boats And Only Drift Near Each Other When We Need A Ride From Someone Or When Someone Needs Us To Wash Our Hands.

My Chauffer Once Told Me That I Would Feel Better In The Morning, But When I Woke Up The Two Of Us Were Still On A Tiny Island Surrounded By Man-eating Crocodiles, And, As I'm Sure You Can Understand, I Didn't Feel Any Better About It.

If You Have Ever Had A Miserable Experience, Then You Have Probably Had It Said To You That You Would Feel Better In The Morning. This, Of Course, Is Utter Nonsense, Because A Miserable Experience Remains A Miserable Experience Even On The Loveliest Of Morning.

Once More, This Is Love: It Rings And You Open Up Unless It Looks Like An Ax Murderer.

Sometime During Your Life—in Fact, Very Soon—you May Find Yourself Reading A Book, And You May Notice That A Book’s First Sentence Can Often Tell You What Sort Of Story Your Book Contains.

Finding Yourself

Fate Is Like A Strange, Unpopular Restaurant Filled With Odd Little Waiters Who Bring You Things You Never Asked For And Don't Always Like.

I Want To Love You And Take You Pretty Places. Yes, I Have Things Wrong, But Also I Can Walk Through Walls If You'll Let Me Show You.

One Cannot Spend Forever Sitting And Solving The Mysteries Of Oone's History.

There Are Those Who Say That Life Is Like A Book, With Chapters For Each Event In Your Life And A Limited Number Of Pages On Which You Can Spend Your Time. But I Prefer To Think That A Book Is Like A Life, Particularly A Good One, Which Is Well To Worth Staying Up All Night To Finish.

I Write Storys To Entertain Not To Be The Best

If Writers Wrote As Carelessly As Some People Talk, Then Adhasdh Asdglaseuyt[bn[ Pasdlgkhasdfasdf.

I Liked, I Admit, That We Didn’t Pretend There Hadn’t Been Other Girls. There Was Always A Girl On You In The Halls At School, Like They Came Free With A Backpack.

It Is A Curious Thing, The Death Of A Loved One. We All Know That Our Time In This World Is Limited, And That Eventually All Of Us Will End Up Underneath Some Sheet, Never To Wake Up. And Yet It Is Always A Surprise When It Happens To Someone We Know. It Is Like Walking Up The Stairs To Your Bedroom In The Dark, And Thinking There Is One More Stair Than There Is. Your Foot Falls Down, Through The Air, And There Is A Sickly Moment Of Dark Surprise As You Try And Readjust The Way You Thought Of Things.

Figuratively, They Escaped From Cout Olaf And Their Miserable Existence. They Did Not Literally Escape, Because They Were Still In His House And Vulnerable To Olaf's Evil In Loco Parentis Ways.

Nowhere In The World Is Safe," Count Olaf Said. Not With You Around," Violet Agreed. I'm No Worse Than Anyone Else," Count Olaf Said.

When Somebody Is A Little Bit Wrong - Say, When A Waited Puts Nonfat Milk In Your Espresso Macchiato, Instead Of Lowfat Milk - It Is Often Quite Easy To Explain To Them How And Why They Are Wrong. But If Somebody Is Surprisingly Wrong - Say, When A Waiter Bites Your Nose Instead Of Taking Your Order - You Can Often Be So Surprised That You Are Unable To Say Anything At All. Paralyzed By How Wrong The Waiter Is, Your Moth Would Hang Slightly Open And Your Eyes Would Blink Over And Over, But You Would Be Unable To Say A Word.

The Right Hand Doesn’t Know What The Left Is Doing” Is A Phrase That Refers To Times When People Ought To Know, But Don’t Know, About Something That Is Happening Very Close To Them. For Instance, You Ought To Know About The Man Who Watches You When You Sleep.

The Expression "following Suit" Is A Curious One, Because It Has Nothing To Do With Walking Behind A Matching Set Of Clothing. If You Follow Suit, It Means You Do The Same Thing Somebody Else Has Just Done. If All Of Your Friends Decided To Jump Off A Bridge Into The Icy Waters Of An Ocean Or River, For Instance, And You Jumped In Right After Them, You Would Be Following Suit. You Can See Why Following Suit Can Be A Dangerous Thing To Do, Because You Could End Up Drowning Simply Because Somebody Else Thought Of It First.

I Stand Entwined In Fire On The Inextinguishable Bonfire Of Inconceivable Love.

Count Olaf Sounds Like An Awful Person. I Hope He Is Torn Apart By Wild Animals Someday. Wouldn't That Be Satisfying?

Every Last Souvenir Of The Love We Had, The Prizes & The Debris Of This Relationship, Like The Glitter In The Gutter When The Parade Has Passed, All The Everything & Whatnot Kicked To The Curb.

The Book Was Long, And Difficult To Read, And Klaus Became More And More Tired As The Night Wore On. Occasionally His Eyes Would Close. He Found Himself Reading The Same Sentence Over And Over. He Found Himself Reading The Same Sentence Over And Over. He Found Himself Reading The Same Sentence Over And Over.

The Thing With Your Heart's Desire Is That Your Heart Doesn't Even Know What It Desires Until It Turns Up.

It Turns Out She Is Canadian, My Editor, And So She Drinks Like A Fish. So She Wasn't A Lightweight At All. And In The Morning, She Said That The Idea Still Seemed Like A Good One, And Here We Are.

It Looked Like Something The Hemlock Needed, Or A Piece Of Equipment A Plumber Had Left Behind. It Looked Like None Of Your Business.

And Then Of Course The Music Sprang Up, Lousy Rock As Bold And Dull As A Giant Potato. "love This Song," Todd Said, Like It Was Unusually Brave To Like What Was Number One On The Radio.

There Are Few Sights Sadder Than A Ruined Book.

Those Unable To Catalog The Past Are Doomed To Repeat It.

One Of The Most Difficult Things To Think About In Life Is One’s Regrets. Something Will Happen To You, And You Will Do The Wrong Thing, And For Years Afterward You Will Wish You Had Done Something Different.

Of Course, It Is Boring To Read About Boring Thing, But It Is Better To Read Something That Makes You Yawn With Boredom Than Something That Will Make You Weep Uncontrollably, Pound Your Fists Against The Floor, And Leave Tearstains All Over Your Pillowcase, Sheets, And Boomerang Collection.

Making You Happy Isn't Making Me Happy.

It Is Likely I Will Die Next To A Pile Of Things I Was Meaning To Read.

It Was Darker Than A Pitch-black Panther, Covered In Tar, Eating Black Licorice At The Very Bottom Of The Deepest Part Of The Black Sea.

I Love Meeting People Who Have Absolutely No Sense Of Irony. It's Really Fascinating To Imagine What It Would Be Like To Go Through Life Without Understanding Even The Most Basic Of Ironies.

If You Wish To Avoid An Unpleasant Story You Had Best Put This Book Down

The Smell Of Cooking Food Is Often A Calming One.

You Might Be Afraid Of The Dark, But The Dark Is Not Afraid Of You. That’s Why The Dark Is Always Close By.

For Obvious Reasons, I Never Told You About My Notebook, With A Cover As Green As Mansions Long Ago, Which I Use As A Commonplace Book, A Phrase Which Here Means 'place Where I Have Collected Passages From Some Of The Most Important Books I Have Read.

I’d Ruin Any Day, All My Days, For Those Long Nights With You, And I Did.

Keep Anyone With Whom You Can Read In Silence.

It Is Terribly Rude To Tell People That Their Troubles Are Boring.

One's Home Is Like A Delicious Piece Of Pie You Order In A Restaurant On A Country Road One Cozy Evening - The Best Piece Of Pie You Have Ever Eaten In Your Life - And Can Never Find Again. After You Leave Home, You May Find Yourself Feeling Homesick, Even If You Have A New Home That Has Nicer Wallpaper And A More Efficient Dishwasher Than The Home In Which You Grew Up.

The Way That The Stories Go In The Snicket Books Is Just The Way Stories Naturally Go To Me. They're Full Of Misery, And Yet The Misery Ends Up Being Slightly Hilarious. And In Terms Of The Warnings On The Back Of The Books, That Really Started As An Honest Assessment Of Their Marketability.

The Sad Truth Is The Truth Is Sad.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

I Don’t Smoke, Although It Looks Fantastic In Films. But I Light Matches On Those Thinking Blank Nights When I Crawl My Route Out Onto The Roof Of The Garage And The Sky While My Parents Sleep Innocent And The Lonely Cars Move Sparse On The Faraway Streets, When The Pillow Won’t Stay Cool And The Blankets Bother My Body No Matter How I Move Or Lie Still. I Just Sit With My Legs Dangling And Light Matches And Watch Them Flicker Away.

This Is Like A Cookie, It Tastes Like A Cookie Having Sex With A Doughnut.

It's Different," You Said. "you've Made, Min, Everything Different For Me. Everything's Like Coffee You Made Me Try, Better Than I Ever - Or The Places I Didn't Even Know Were Right On The Street, You Know? I'm Like This Thing I Saw When I Was Little, Where A Kid Hears A Noise Under His Bed And There's A Ladder There That's Never Been There Before, And He Climbs Down And, It's For Kids I Know, But This Song Starts Playing..." Your Eyes Were Traveling In The Treey Light.

If You Try To Avoid Every Instance Of Peer Pressure You Will End Up Without Any Peers Whatsoever, And The Trick Is To Succumb To Enough Pressure That You Do Not Drive Your Peers Away, But Not So Much That You End Up In A Situation In Which You Are Dead Or Otherwise Uncomfortable. This Is A Difficult Trick, And Most People Never Master It, And End Up Dead Or Uncomfortable At Least Once During Their Lives.

Just Because Something Is Traditional Is No Reason To Do It, Of Course.

I Stayed There Loving You, Though The Love Made Me, Not Sad But I Guess Melancholy, For A Reason I Couldn’t Point To.

People Worry More About Girls, For A Good Reason: I Don't Think My Parents Thought I Was Going To Be Raped By A Classmate Or Attacked When I Was Walking Alone In Some Neighborhood. So It's Not Just Paranoid Parents.

Stop Saying No Offense,” I Said, “when You Say Offensive Things. It’s Not A Free Pass.

I'm Sure You Have Heard It Said That Appearance Does Not Matter So Much, And That It Is What's On The Inside That Counts. This Is, Of Course, Utter Nonsense, Because If It Were True Then People Who Were Good On This Inside Would Would Never Have To Comb Their Hair Or Take A Bath, And The Whole World Would Smell Even Worse Than It Already Does.

The Movie Was Kickass, Which Was Appropriate, Because Tonight It Was Called Kickass: The Movie.

I Like To Think That I Get Better And Better As A Writer, But It Seems Pretty Easy To Me To Slip On Disguises Of Various People.

It Is One Of Life's Bitterest Truths That Bedtime So Often Arrives Just When Things Are Really Getting Interesting.

A Passport, As I'm Sure You Know, Is A Document That One Shows To Government Officials Whenever One Reaches A Border Between Two Countries, So That The Official Can Learn Who You Are, Where You Were Born, And How You Look When Photographed Unflatteringly.

Take It Back, Ed. Take It All Back.

Knowing That Something Is Wrong And Doing It Anyway Happens Very Often In Life, And I Doubt I Will Ever Know Why.

Anyone Who Thinks The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword Has Not Been Stabbed With Both.

There Are Many, Many Types Of Books In The World, Which Makes Good Sense, Because There Are Many, Many Types Of People, And Everybody Wants To Read Something Different.

Sometimes Words Are Not Enough.

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.

A Mystery Is Solved With A Story.

I Think I’ve Always Believed That There Is One Person In The Universe Who You’re Truly Meant For–for Whom You Are Truly Meant–and The Fact That Sometimes There Are Two Or Even More People On The Earth You Can Fall In Love With Really Bothers Me. It Suggests That If You Work Hard You Can Be Meant For Anyone.

Falling In Love

When I Was Researching My Very First Novel, "the Basic Eight," I Was Calling Right-wing Political And Religious Organizations And Asking Them To Mail Me Their Material So That I Could Mock Them In My Novels.

One Of The Remarkable Things About Love Is That, Despite Very Irritating People Writing Poems And Songs About How Pleasant It Is, It Really Is Quite Pleasant.

My General Writing Preface Is To Write An Outline And Then Ignore About Half Of It, Both On A Micro Level With The Individual Book, And On A Macro Level With The Series As A Whole, And That's Pretty Much What's Happened.

It Is So Rare In This World To Meet A Trustworthy Person Who Truly Wants To Help You, And Finding Such A Person Can Make You Feel Warm And Safe, Even If You Are In The Middle Of A Windy Valley High Up In The Mountains.

If You Don’t Care About Something, One Way To Demonstrate Your Feelings Is To Say The Word And Then Repeat The Word With The Letters S-c-h-m Replacing The First Letters. Somebody Who Didn’t Care About Dentists, For Instance Could Say ‘dentist, Schmentists.

It Is Always Sad When Someone Leaves Home, Unless They Are Simply Going Around The Corner And Will Return In A Few Minutes With Ice-cream Sandwiches.

Wishing, Like Sipping A Glass Of Punch, Or Pulling Aside A Bearskin Rug In Order To Access A Hidden Trapdoor In The Floor, Is Merely A Quiet Way To Spend One's Time Before The Candles Are Extinguished On One's Birthday Cake.

Lemony Snicket. Now, I'm Told - The Books, Of Course, Starting From The Very First One, Became Hugely Popular, Selling Millions And Millions. And I Understand That When You Used To Go Around To Talk To Your Very Young Fans, You Would Appear As Lemony Snicket's Representative Or Agent.

Never Trust Anyone Who Has Not Brought A Book With Them.

Morning Is An Important Time Of Day, Because How You Spend Your Morning Can Often Tell You What Kind Of Day You Are Going To Have.

Daniel Handler's A Writer, Musician And The Author Of, Among Other Things, The "series Of Unfortunate Events" Books. He Also Wrote The Tv Version Of The Books That Is Available Now On Netflix. As Said, I Recommend Both Media For This Story.

I Kind Of Always Think My Work Is Unfilmable, And When I Meet People Who Are Interested In Filming It, I'm Always Stunned.

A Good Library Will Never Be Too Neat, Or Too Dusty, Because Somebody Will Always Be In It, Taking Books Off The Shelves And Staying Up Late Reading Them.

Thought Provoking

Take Back The Smile And The Night, Take It All Back, I Wish I Could.

What Happens In A Certain Place Can Stain Your Feelings For That Location, Just As Ink Can Stain A White Sheet.

I Started Making Plans, Thinking We Would Get That Far.

I Had Written Eight Drafts Of The Lemony Snicket' Screenplay When This Changing-of-the-guard Thing Happened, And I Said To The New Producers, "i Don't Think I Could Write Any More Drafts." I Guess I Was Sort Of Hoping They Would Say, "well That's Okay, This Last One Is Perfect." But Instead, They Said, "it's Funny You Should Say That. We Don't Think You Can Write Any More Drafts Either."

I Can't Imagine Why You Would Want To Take Your Child To See What The Career Of A Writer Is Like, Because It Mostly Consists Of Sitting In A Room Typing, Or Going To The Library And Looking Something Up. Those Are Not Exciting Things To Watch.

This Is Love, To Sit With Someone You've Known Forever In A Place You've Been Meaning To Go, And Watching As Their Life Happens To Them Until You Stand Up And It's Time To Go.

Everyone Tells You It's All Right To Cry, But Not Enough People Say It's All Right If You Don't Want People To Know.

It Was A Curious Feeling, That Something Could Be So Close And So Distant At The Same Time.

When It Was First Optioned, I Was Told That The Chances Of The Basic Eight Becoming A Film Were Slim Because No One Was Making Teen Movies, And Then Later, I Was Told That The Chances Were Slim Because There Were So Many Teen Movies, And Then I Was Later Told That The Chances Were Slim Because Teen Films Were Over. I'm Not Sure When The Magic Window Of Opportunity Was, But Perhaps It's Still On The Horizon.

A Newspaper, As I'm Sure You Know, Is A Collection Of Supposedly True Stories Written Down By Writers Who Either Saw Them Happen Or Talked To People Who Did. These Writers Are Called Journalists, And Like Telephone Operators, Butchers, Ballerinas, And People Who Clean Up After Horses, Journalists Can Sometimes Make Mistakes.

It Seemed To Me That Every Adult Did Something Terrible Sooner Or Later. And Every Child, I Thought, Sooner Or Later Becomes An Adult.

It Is A Miracle If You Can Find True Friends, And It Is A Miracle If You Have Enough Food To Eat, And It Is A Miracle If You Get To Spend Your Days And Evenings Doing Whatever It Is You Like To Do, And The Holiday Season - Like All The Other Seasons - Is A Good Time Not Only To Tell Stories Of Miracles, But To Think About The Miracles In Your Own Life, And To Be Grateful For Them, And That's The End Of This Particular Story.

Like Most Writers, I Look Back On All Of My Finished Works With Utter Regret, And The Trouble With Writing A Series Of Novels Is That You Have To Go Back And Read Them, And Make Sure That You Haven't Forgotten Anything You've Created, And Then When You Do That, You're Faced With Your Own Mistakes On Every Trick, From The Wrong Word In Places To Entirely The Wrong Incident.

We Laughed The Rest Of The Way, Because The Point Of This Story Is, It Is Not The Cookies. It Is The Love.

Writing Is A Dying Form. One Reads Of This Every Day.

It Is Very Unnerving To Be Proven Wrong, Particularly When You Are Really Right And The Person Who Is Really Wrong Is Proving You Wrong And Proving Himself, Wrongly, Right.

The Right Boys I Always Toss And The Wrong Ones I Keep On Top Of Me Like Paperweights.

I Know What Is Going On," Said Sir. "i Am The Boss! Of Course I Know!

The Only Thing He Cares About.

Every Time You Enter A Library You Might Say To Yourself, "the World Is Quiet Here," As A Sort Of Pledge Proclaiming Reading To Be The Greater Good.

The Trick To Following Someone Without Getting Caught Is To Follow Somebody Who Doesn't Think They're Being Followed.

There Are Many Things In Life That Become Different If You Take A Long Look At Them.

How Did You Do That?” Mr. Poe Asked. “nice Girls Shouldn’t Know How To Do Such Things.” “my Sister Is A Nice Girl,” Klaus Said, “and She Knows How To Do All Sorts Of Things.

It Is Not Very Polite To Interrupt A Person, Of Course, But Sometimes If The Person Is Very Unpleasant You Can Hardly Stop Yourself.

When Trouble Strikes, Head To The Library. You Will Either Be Able To Solve The Problem, Or Simply Have Something To Read As The World Crashes Down Around You.

It Is Almost As If Happiness Is An Acquired Taste, Like Coconut Cordial Or Ceviche, To Which You Can Eventually Become Accustomed, But Despair Is Something Surprising Each Time You Encounter It.

The Real Santa Claus Is At The Mall.

With A Library It Is Easier To Hope For Serendipity Than To Look For A Precise Answer.

Opera Was An Enormous Part Of My Childhood. My Parents Were Both Opera Buffs, And They Met In The Box Seat Of An Opera Performance. And I Also Was A Boy Soprano, So Before Puberty Hit, I Was Onstage Playing A Wide Variety Of Orphans And Urchins In All Sorts Of Operas, And The Sheer Melodrama Of Their Stories Was Just Always Appealing To Me.

Sometimes, Just Saying That You Hate Something, And Having Someone Agree With You, Can Make You Feel Better About A Terrible Situation.

Members Of Your Family Might Say They Are Working Hard All Day Long, While You Are Off At School Or Clarinet Lessons, But The Only Way To Know This For Sure Is To Follow Them At A Discreet Distance.

For Beatrice, Summer Without You Is As Cold As Winter. Winter Without You, Is Even Colder.

The Way Sadness Works Is One Of The Strangest Riddles Of The World.

What You Don't Read Is Often As Important As What You Do Read.

In Most Cases, The Best Strategy For A Job Interview Is To Be Fairly Honest, Because The Worst Thing That Can Happen Is That You Won't Get The Job And Will Spend The Rest Of Your Life Foraging For Food In The Wilderness And Seeking Shelter Underneath A Tree Or The Awning Of A Bowling Alley That Has Gone Out Of Business.

...everyone Was Right About You- Prove Them Wrong.

Prove Them Wrong

Here We Are At The Bottom, Almost Empty. It's Like Confetti, These Dried Remnants You Find In The Street For A Party No One Invited You To. But They Used To Be, I Can Admit, Part Of Something Beautiful.

Undeveloped, The Whole Thing,tossed Into A Box Before We Really Had A Chance To Know What We Had, And That's Why We Broke Up.

Everybody Has A Theory.

Boredom Is Not Black Licorice, Snicket," She Said. "there's No Reason To Share It With Me.

I Am Heartbroken, But I Have Been Heartbroken Before, And This Might Be The Best For Which I Can Hope.

This Feeling Is Not Unlike The Sinking In One's Stomach When One Is In An Elevator That Suddenly Goes Down, Or When You Are Snug In Your Bed And Your Closet Door Suddenly Creaks Open To Reveal The Person Who Has Been Hiding There.

The File Clanked Against Me, My Stupid Idea Nobody Would Have Gotten Had I Ever Done It. You Even Wouldn't Have Gotten It, Ed, I Thought, Watching Her Go. It's Why We Broke Up, So Here It Is. Ed, How Could You?

The Long Goodbye' Is One Book I Like To Read Over And Over Again, And It Was An Enormous Inspiration For 'all The Wrong Questions'.

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