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I Wrote A Comedy, Which Hopefully [rick Director] Curtiss Clayton Will Bring To The Screen, That I Thought Was The Antithesis Of All My Work. I Thought It Was Light And Sunshiny, And Mr. Clayton Reminded Me That It Is The Story Of A Woman Kidnapped And Forced To Do Things Against Her Will, Which Is Not What Most People Think Of As Light And Sunshiny.

-Daniel Handler

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I Wrote A Comedy,

Daniel Handler

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I Wrote A Comedy, Which Hopefully [rick Director] Curtiss Clayton Will Bring To The Screen, That I Thought Was The Antithesis Of All My Work. I Thought It Was Light And Sunshiny, And Mr. Clayton Reminded Me That It Is The Story Of A Woman Kidnapped And Forced To Do Things Against Her Will, Which Is Not What Most People Think Of As Light And Sunshiny.

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

To Beatrice- My Love Flew Like A Butterfly Until Death Swooped Down Like A Bat As The Poet Emma Montana Mcelroy Said: 'that's The End Of That.

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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.

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Congratulations

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It Doesn't Take Courage To Kill Someone,' Klaus Said. 'it Takes A Severe Lack Of Moral Stamina.

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I Met [my Editor] In A Bar Where Alcoholic Beverages Are Served And I Bought Her One And I Told Her The Idea. And She Said That She Liked It Very Much, Which Embarrassed Me Because I Thought It Meant That She Was A Lightweight And That In The Morning, As So Many Women Say To So Many Men, What Seems Like A Good Idea, You Know, Turns Out Not To Be.

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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.

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.

Anyone Who Knew Violet Well Could Tell She Was Thinking Hard, Because Her Long Hair Was Tied Up In A Ribbon To Keep It Out Of Her Eyes. Violet Had A Real Knack For Inventing And Building Strange Devices, So Her Brain Was Often Filled With Images Of Pulleys, Levers, And Gears, And She Never Wanted To Be Distracted By Something As Trivial As Her Hair.

I Am So Tired, I Can Hardly Type These Worfs.

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.

Love Can Change A Person The Way A Parent Can Change A Baby - Awkwardly, And Often With A Great Deal Of Mess.

Keep Anyone With Whom You Can Read In Silence.

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

He Who Hesitates Is Lost

The Smell Of Cooking Food Is Often A Calming One.

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

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

The Real Santa Claus Is At The Mall.

There Was Still Plenty Of Water In The Basement, And I Felt It Soaking Me From The Knees On Down. If Someone Wanted To Torture Me Until I Told Them A Critical Piece Of Information, All They Would Have To Do Is Get My Socks Wet. It Feels Terrible.

For Beatrice, When We First Met, I Was Lonely, And You Were Pretty. Now I Am Pretty Lonely.

When I Wrote Rick, I Had The Idea That I Would Take The Plot Of Nearly Every Opera And Turn It Into A Dark Film, Which Is Something I Still May Do.

The Key To Good Eavesdropping Is Not Getting Caught.

Even The Best Plans Can Change If There's An Accident.

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

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.

I Wore It, This Careless Thing You Don't Even Remember Giving To Me From Your Bag. It Wasn't A Gift, This Thing I'm Returning. It Was Barely A Gesture, Almost Forgotten Already, This Thing I Wore Like It Was Dear To Me. And It Was. No Wonder We Broke Up.

If You Are Allergic To A Thing, It Is Best Not To Put That Thing In Your Mouth, Particularly If The Thing Is Cats.

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Inspirational Life

The Table Of Elements Does Not Contain One Of The Most Powerful Elements That Make Up Our World, And That Is The Element Of Surprise.

Adverbs Is A Book About Love, And I Thought That Was Pretty Cheerful, But People Who Are Reading It Now Are Telling Me That It's Actually Quite Dark.

In The Time Since The Baudelaire Parents' Death, Most Of The Baudelaire Orphans' Friends Had Fallen By The Wayside, An Expression Wich Here Means "they Stopped Calling, Writing, And Stopping By To See Any Of The Baudelaires, Making Them Lonely". You And I, Of Course, Would Never Do This To Any Of Our Grieving Acquaintances, But It Is A Sad Truth That When Someone Has Lost A Loved One, Friends Sometimes Avoid The Person, Just When The Presence Of Friends Is Most Needed.

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.

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.

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.

When Someone Is Crying, Of Course, The Noble Thing To Do Is To Comfort Them. But If Someone Is Trying To Hide Their Tears, It May Also Be Noble To Pretend You Do Not Notice Them.

Dead Women Tell No Tales. Sad Men Write Them Down.

Just Because Something Is Typed-whether It Is Typed On A Business Card Or Typed In A Newspaper Or Book-this Does Not Mean That It Is True.

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

One Of The World's Most Popular Entertainments Is A Deck Of Cards, Which Contains Thirteen Each Of Four Suits, Highlighted By Kings, Queens And Jacks, Who Are Possibly The Queen's Younger, More Attractive Boyfriends.

Popular Entertainment

Perhaps If We Saw What Was Ahead Of Us, And Glimpsed The Follies, And Misfortunes That Would Befall Us Later On, We Would All Stay In Our Mother's Wombs, And Then There Would Be Nobody In The World But A Great Number Of Very Fat, Very Irritated Women.

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.

Appearance Matters A Great Deal Because You Can Often Tell A Lot About People By Looking At How They Present Themselves.

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.

I Think Pirates, Like Astronauts, Particularly For A Boy, Are Always Kind Of Worth Thinking About.

I Will Love You As The Iceberg Loves The Ship, And The Passengers Love The Lifeboat And The Lifeboat Loves The Teeth Of The Sperm Whale, And The Sperm Whale Loves The Flavor Of Naval Uniforms.

I Gasped And Pointed The Way. I Gave You An Adventure, Ed, Right In Front Of You But You Never Saw It Until I Showed You, And That's Why We Broke Up.

It Is Not The Diamonds Or The Birds, The People Or The Potatoes, It Is Not Any Of The Nouns. The Miracle Is The Adverbs, The Way Things Are Done. It Is The Way Love Gets Done Despite Every Catastrophe.

I'm Jealous Of Your Hooks," Kevin Replied. "having No Hands Is Better Than Having Two Equally Strong Hands." Don't Be Ridiculous," One Of The White-faced Women Replied. "having A White Face Is Worse Than Both Of Your Situations." But You Have A White Face Because You Put Makeup On," Colette Said, As Sunny Climbed Back Out Of The Trunk And Knelt Down In The Snow. "you're Putting Powder On Your Face Right Now.

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

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

But It's Far Too Late For Us; Ring, Hair, Letters, Photographs - All Traces Of Our Love Will Be Scattered Then, Like An Anagram.

The Sad Truth Is The Truth Is Sad.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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.

People Who Say Money Doesn’t Matter Are Like People Who Say Cake Doesn’t Matter—it’s Probably Because They’ve Already Had A Few Slices.

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."

For Beatrice- My Love For You Shall Live Forever. You, However, Did Not.

My Love For You

I Decided That It Might Be Interesting To Have Terrible Things Happen To Orphans Over And Over Again.

For Beatrice, When We Met, My Life Began. Soon Afterwards, Yours Ended.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

I'm Not A Believer In Predetermined Fates, Being Rewarded For One's Efforts. I'm Not A Believer In Karma. The Reason Why I Try To Be A Good Person Is Because I Think It's The Right Thing To Do. If I Commit Fewer Bad Acts There Will Be Fewer Bad Acts, Maybe Other People Will Join In Committing Fewer Bad Acts, And In Time There Will Be Fewer And Fewer Of Them.

...you Know That A Good, Long Session Of Weeping Can Often Make You Feel Better, Even If Your Circumstances Have Not Changed One Bit.

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

I Like To Give People Novels I Think They Would Like, On No Particular Occasion - Just When We're In A Bookstore Together. I Like To Receive Reference Books On My Birthday.

If You Know Somebody Very Well, Like Your Grandmother Or Your Baby Sister, You Will Know When They Are Real And When They Are Fake.

I'm Always Loath To Make Generalizations About What Is For Children And What Isn't. Certainly Children's Literature As A Genre Has Some Restrictions, So Certain Things Will Never Pop Up In A Snicket Book. But I Didn't Know Anything About Writing For Children When I Started - This Is The Theme Of Naïveté Creeping Up On Us Once More - And I Sort Of Still Don't, And I'm Happy That Adults Are Reading Them As Well As Children.

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.' [...]

Who Would Dare Think That, Forever? Some Idiot Girl Who Wouldn’t Know How Things Played Out.

I’m Not A Romantic, I’m A Half-wit. Only Stupid People Would Think I’m Smart. I’m Not Something Anyone Should Know. I’m A Lunatic Wandering Around For Scraps, I’m Like Every Single Miserable Moron I’ve Scorned And Pretended I Didn’t Recognize. I’m All Of Them, Every Last Ugly Thing In A Bad Last-minute Costume. I’m Not Different, Not At All, Not Different From Any Other Speck Of A Thing. I’m A Blemished Blemish, A Ruined Ruin, A Stained Wreck So Failed I Can’t See What I Used To Be.

Never Look A Gift Lion In The Mouth.

Someone Feeling Wronged Is Like Someone Feeling Thirsty. Don’t Tell Them They Aren’t. Sit With Them And Have A Drink.

It Is My Fate That Some Of My Questions Will Never Be Answered.

You Know, There's A Big World Out There Filled With Desperate Orphans Who Would Gladly Swim Across An Ocean Of Thumbtacks Just To Be Eclipsed By The Long Shadow That Is Cast By My Accomplishments.

Put Your Hair Up, Min. The Secret Ingredient Is Not Your Hair.

Sometimes When Someone Tells A Ridiculous Lie, It Is Best To Ignore It Entirely.

You Might Find It Difficult To See Anything But Your Own Sadness, The Way Smoke Can Cover A Landscape So That All Anyone Can See Is Black. You May Find That If Someone Pours Water All Over You, You Are Damp And Distracted, But Not Cured Of Your Sadness, The Way A Fire Department Can Douse A Fire But Never Recover What Has Been Burnt Down.

Just About Everybody Has Written A First Novel That They Throw Away Before Writing Their Actual First Novel.

If An Optimist Had His Left Arm Chewed Off By An Alligator, He Might Say In A Pleasant And Hopeful Voice, "well This Isn't Too Bad, I Don't Have A Left Arm Anymore But At Least Nobody Will Ever Ask Me If I'm Left-handed Or Right-handed," But Most Of Us Would Say Something More Along The Lines Of, "aaaaaa! My Arm! My Arm!"

For Beatrice, Our Love Broke My Heart, And Stopped Yours.

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

Wicked People Never Have Time For Reading. It's One Of The Reasons For Their Wickedness.

If You Are A Student You Should Always Get A Good Nights Sleep Unless You Have Come To The Good Part Of Your Book, And Then You Should Stay Up All Night And Let Your Schoolwork Fall By The Wayside, A Phrase Which Means 'flunk'.

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.

Shyness Is A Curious Thing, Because, Like Quicksand, It Can Strike People At Any Time, And Also, Like Quicksand, It Usually Makes Its Victims Look Down.

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?

It Is Very Difficult To Make One's Way In This World Without Being Wicked At One Time Or Another, When The World's Way Is So Wicked To Being With.

An Overall Feeling Of Doom That One Cannot Ever Escape No Matter What One Does

Everybody Has A Theory.

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.

Instead Of The Word 'love' There Was An Enormous Heart, A Symbol Sometimes Used By People Who Have Trouble Figuring Out The Difference Between Words And Shapes.

Wherever It's Good, Whatever Strange, Faraway Land, Let's Go There, Let's Stay In That Place Alone.

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

I Think There Are Probably Just As Many Adults Who Would Miss The Humor Of My Books, If Not More, As There Are Children.

Certain People Have Said That The World Is Like A Calm Pond, And That Anytime A Person Does Even The Smallest Thing, It Is As If A Stone Has Dropped Into The Pond, Spreading Circles Of Ripples Further And Further Out, Until The Entire World Has Been Changed By One Tiny Action.

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

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

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.

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