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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.

-Daniel Handler

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It Is A Miracle

Daniel Handler

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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.

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

But There Are Times In This Harum-scarum World When Figuring Out The Right Thing To Do Is Quite Simple, But Doing The Right Thing Is Simply Impossible.

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

Various Parts Of My Body Told Me That In The Future They Would Appreciate It If I Slept Lying Down On A Bed Instead Of Sitting At The Counter Of Black Cat Coffee. I Quietly Reassured Them That This Was An Unusual Situation, And Had The Machinery Make Me Some Bread As A Breakfast.

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.

Sometimes Even In Most Unfortunate Of Lives There Will Occur A Moment Or Two Of Good.

Anyone Who Gives You A Cinnamon Roll Fresh Out Of The Oven Is A Friend For Life.

Friends For Life

The Sad Truth Is The Truth Is Sad.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

Sometimes Words Are Not Enough. There Are Some Circumstances So Utterly Wretched That I Cannot Describe Them In Sentences Or Paragraphs Or Even A Whole Series Of Books.

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.

In The Secret Pocket, She Often Kept A Small Pocket Dictionary, Which She Would Take Out Whenever She Encountered A Word She Did Not Know.

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

Is It Ok Not To Be A Virgin, Yes. Most People Aren’t Virgins, Min. That’s Why There’s People To Begin With.

If Everyone Fought Fire With Fire, The Whole World Would Go Up In Smoke.

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

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.

I Have A Dream Of What Would Have Happened If What Happened Instead Hadn't.

I Never Thought About Whether Film Is Inherently More Sincere, Because Certainly I Think If Guy Maddin Had Directed A Series Of Unfortunate Events, There Probably Could Have Been More Of The Stage-y Irony That Is In The Books. But I Was Just Interested To See What People Would Do With It, And Worrying That Brad Silberling Wouldn't Do What I Had In Mind.

Make Sure You Have Your Own Mask On, Before Helping Others With Theirs.

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.

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

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.

Temper Tantrums, However Fun They May Be To Throw, Rarely Solve Whatever Problem Is Causing Them.

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

Unless You Have Been Very, Very Lucky, You Have Undoubtedly Experienced Events In Your Life That Have Made You Cry. So Unless You Have Been Very, Very Lucky, You Know That A Good, Long Session Of Weeping Can Often Make You Feel Better, Even If Your Circumstances Have Not Changed One Bit.

In Times Of Extreme Stress, One Can Often Find Energy Hidden In Even The Most Exhausted Areas Of The Body.

Your Initial Opinion On Just About Anything May Change Over Time.

First Impression

Just About Everything In This World Is Easier Said Than Done, With The Exception Of 'systematically Assisting Sisyphus's Stealthy, Syst-susceptible Sister,' Which Is Easier Done Than Said.

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.

Mostly, It's Flattering To Meet Fans. As Long As It's In A Planned, Professional Meeting, Rather Than, Say, Someone Dropping By My Home, Which Is Not As Pleasant.

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.

Love Is Candy From A Stranger, But It's Candy You've Had Before And It Probably Won't Kill You.

There Are Two Good Reasons To Put Your Napkin In Your Lap. One Is That Food Might Spill In Your Lap, And It Is Better To Stain The Napkin Than Your Clothing. The Other Is That It Can Serve As A Perfect Hiding Place. Practically Nobody Is Nosey Enough To Take The Napkin Off A Lap To See What Is Hidden There.

Literature Doesn’t Exactly Have A Strong Mental-health Track Record.

Take It Back, Ed. Take It All Back.

We Are Respecting Our Parents' Wishes....they Didn't Want To Shelter Us From The World's Treacheries. They Wanted Us To Survive Them.

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.

One Can Remain Alive Long Past The Usual Date Of Disintegration If One Is Unafraid Of Change, Insatiable In Intellectual Curiosity, Interested In Big Things, And Happy In Small Ways.

Are You Who I Think You Are?

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.

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 Can't Think Of A Story That Doesn't Have Something Terrible In It. Otherwise, It's Dull. So When I Embarked Into The World Of Picture Books, My First Thought Was To Do Something About The Dark.

I Do Think Of Emotions As Being On A Circular Path, So You Can Feel Terrible And Terrible And Terrible, And Then All Of A Sudden It Becomes Quite Funny.

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.

Off With You" Is A Phrase Used By People Who Lack The Curtesy To Say Something More Polite, Such As, "if There's Nothing Else You Require I Must Be Going" Or "i'm Sorry But I'm Going To Have To Ask You To Leave, Please" Or Even "excuse Me But I Believe You Have Mistaken My Home For Your Own And My Valuable Belongings For Yours And I Must Ask You To Return The Items In Question To Me And Leave My Home After Untying Me From This Chair, As I'm Unable To Do It Myself, If It's Not Too Much Trouble.

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.

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

Money Is Like A Child—rarely Unaccompanied. When It Disappears, Look To Those Who Were Supposed To Be Keeping An Eye On It While You Were At The Grocery Store. You Might Also Look For Someone Who Has A Lot Of Extra Children Sitting Around, With Long, Suspicious Explanations For How They Got There.

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

At Times The World May Seem An Unfriendly And Sinister Place, But Believe That There Is Much More Good In It Than Bad. All You Have To Do Is Look Hard Enough. And What Might Seem To Be A Series Of Unfortunate Events May In Fact Be The First Steps Of A Journey.

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

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

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.

I Do What I Do," I Said, "in Order To Do Something Else.

But The World Did Not Match The Picture In My Head, And Instead I Was With A Strange, Uncombed Person, Overlooking A Sea Without Water And A Forest Without Trees.

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?

A Library Is Like An Island In The Middle Of A Vast Sea Of Ignorance, Particularly If The Library Is Very Tall And The Surrounding Area Has Been Flooded.

It Is Difficult, When Faced With A Situation You Cannot Control, To Admit You Can Do Nothing.

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

The Miracle Is The Adverbs, The Way Things Are Done.

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.

Announcing Your Death Should Be Like Announcing That You Are A Lunar Moth: It Must Be Done Quietly Or It Will Not Be Believed.

...in Life It Is Often The Tiny Details That End Up Being The Most Important.

Never Look A Gift Lion In The Mouth.

There Are Some People Who Believe That Home Is Where One Hangs One's Hat, But These People Tend To Live In Closets And On Little Pegs.

When Do You Learn That The World, Like Any Diner Worth Its Salt, Is Open Twenty-four Hours A Day?

There Is Nothing Particularly Wrong With Salmon, Of Course, But Like Caramel Candy, Strawberry Yogurt, Or Liquid Carpet Cleaner, If You Eat Too Much Of It You Are Not Going To Enjoy Your Meal.

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

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.

There's Information About Everything From Poetry To Pills, From Picture Frames To Pyramids, And From Pudding To Psychology--and That's Just In The P Aisle, Which We're Walking Down Right Now.

And When Love Is Over When The Diner Of Love Seems Closed From The Outside You Want All Those Hours Back Along With Anything You Left At The Lover’s House And Maybe A Couple Of Things Which Aren’t Technically Yours On The Grounds That You Wasted A Portion Of Your Life And Those Hours Have All Gone Southside.

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.

You May Want To Keep A Commonplace Book Which Is A Notebook Where You Can Copy Parts Of Books You Think Are In Code, Or Take Notes On A Series Of Events You May Have Observed That Are Suspicious, Unfortunate, Or Very Dull. Keep Your Commonplace Book In A Safe Place, Such As Underneath Your Bed, Or At A Nearby Dairy.

Bad Circumstances Have A Way Of Ruining Things That Would Otherwise Be Pleasant.

I Have Gone Into Town To Buy A Few Last Things We Need For The Expedition: Peruvian Wasp Repellent, Toothbrushes, Canned Peaches, And A Fireproof Canoe. It Will Take A While To Find The Peaches, So Don't Expect Me Back Until Dinnertime. Stephano, Gustav's Replacement, Will Arrive Today By Taxi. Please Make Him Feel Welcome. As You Know, It Is Only Two Days Until The Expedition, So Please Work Very Hard Today. Your Giddy Uncle, Monty

In This Book, Not Only Is There No Happy Ending, There Is No Happy Beginning And Very Few Happy Things In The Middle.

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.

Santa Claus Has Nothing To Do With It," The Latke Said. "christmas And Hanukah Are Completely Different Things." "but Different Things Can Often Blend Together," Said The Pine Tree. "let Me Tell You A Funny Story About Pagan Rituals.

Everyone Should Be Able To Do One Card Trick, Tell Two Jokes, And Recite Three Poems, In Case They Are Ever Trapped In An Elevator.

Hello, Freaky Peoples!

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'.

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.

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

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

Neither Were You [born Yesterday], Unless Of Course I Am Wrong, In Which Case Welcome To The World, Little Baby, And Congratulations On Learning To Read So Early In Life.

Congratulations

But I Must Admit I Miss You Terribly. The World Is Too Quiet Without You Nearby.

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

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.

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

We Need Things, And The Opposite Of Them, And We Are So Rarely Completely Comfortable.

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.

I Don't Think Film Is The Writer's Medium, And So I Was Interested To See What A Director Would Do With It.

A Girl Meets A Boy, Ed, And Everything Changes, Or So She Says.

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

Reader: Dear Mr. Snicket, What Is The Best Way To Keep A Secret? Lemony Snicket : Tell It To Everyone You Know, But Pretend You Are Kidding.

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.

My Work Is Very Dear To Me, And Certainly I Have Had All The Emotional Highs And Lows That Go With Trying To Get It To An Audience. But I Do Have Some Kind Of Detachment That Seems Somewhat Unusual In My Trade. I'm A Writer Who Writes Every Day. I Don't Have A Period Of Months Where I Can't Get Anything Done And I Wander Around Tearing My Hair Out. When I Come Back From A Book Tour, For Instance, I Might Have One Day Where I Sleep Late And Then Check My E-mail, And Then Go For A Walk, And Then The Next Day I'm Really Itching To Get Back At Writing A Story.

It Is Very Frustrating Not To Be Understood In This World. If You Say One Thing And Keep Being Told That You Mean Something Else, It Can Make You Want To Scream. But Somewhere In The World There Is A Place For All Of Us, Whether You Are An Electric Form Of Decoration, Peppermint-scented Sweet, A Source Of Timber, Or A Potato Pancake.

Historically, A Story About People Inside Impressive Buildings Ignoring Or Even Taunting People Standing Outside Shouting At Them Turns Out To Be A Story With An Unhappy Ending.

[i]t Was The Color Of Someone Buying You An Ice Cream Cone For No Reason At All.

It Is Not Always The Job Of People Shouting Outside Impressive Buildings To Solve Problems. It Is Often The Job Of The People Inside, Who Have Paper, Pens, Desks, And An Impressive View.

Keep Anyone With Whom You Can Read In Silence.

The Holiday Season Is A Time For Storytelling, And Whether You Are Hearing The Story Of A Candelabra Staying Lit For More Than A Week, Or A Baby Born In A Barn Without Proper Medical Supervision, These Stories Often Feature Miracles. Miracles Are Like Pimples, Because Once You Start Looking For Them You Find More Than You Ever Dreamed You'd See, And This Holiday Story Features Any Number Of Miracles, Depending On Your Point Of View.

It Was A Secret Time And Place, You Next To Me, Untraceable And Out Of This World

He Who Hesitates Is Lost

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

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.

It Is A Lonely Feeling When Someone You Care About Becomes A Stranger.

Deciding Whether Or Not To Trust A Person Is Like Deciding Whether Or Not To Climb A Tree, Because You Might Get A Wonderful View From The Highest Branch, Or You Might Simply Get Covered In Sap, And For This Reason Many People Choose To Spend Their Time Alone And Indoors, Where It Is Harder To Get A Splinter.

Stretched Out In Front Of Me Was My Time As An Adult, And Then A Skeleton, And Then Nothing Except Perhaps A Few Books On A Few Shelves.

It Is Useless For Me To Describe To You How Terrible Violet, Klaus, And Even Sunny Felt In The Time That Followed. If You Have Ever Lost Someone Very Important To You, Then You Already Know How It Feels, And If You Haven't, You Cannot Possibly Imagine It.

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.

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'.

Blinded Following The Blindfolded

Love Can Smack You Like A Seagull, And Pour All Over Your Feet Like Junkmail. You Can't Be Ready For Such A Thing Any More Than Salt Water Taffy Gets You Ready For The Ocean.

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

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

Blank Paper Has Always Inspired Me.

You May Be Right,' She Said, A Phrase Which Here Meant 'i’m Wrong, But I Don’t Have The Courage To Say So.

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

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.

Why Not Rise From The Grave And Terrorize A Little Instead Of Staying Buried And Dead In The Cemetery?

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."

It Is Often Difficult To Admit That Someone You Love Is Not Perfect, Or To Consider Aspects Of A Person That Are Less Than Admirable.

Someone You Love

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

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.

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

Strange As It May Seem, I Still Hope For The Best, Even Though The Best, Like An Interesting Piece Of Mail, So Rarely Arrives, And Even When It Does It Can Be Lost So Easily.

It Has Been Said That The Hardest Job In The World Is Raising A Child, But The People Who Says This Have Probably Never Worked At A Comb Factory Or Captured Pirates On The High Seas.

Today Was A Very Cold And Bitter Day, As Cold And Bitter As A Cup Of Hot Chocolate, If The Cup Of Hot Chocolate Had Vinegar Added To It And Were Placed In A Refrigerator For Several Hours.

You Can't Believe Everything You Read.

I Was Too Jitterbuggy Happy To Sleep, And The Whole Day Kept Playing In My Brain's Little Screening Room.

We Weren't Friends[...]we Were More Like Jigsaw Pieces, Each Of Us Part Of The Same Big Picture. There Are People Like This Wherever You Go. They Are Part Of The Same Mystery As You Are, But You Can't Quite Tell How You Fit Together. The World Is A Puzzle, And We Can't Solve It Alone.

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

I Will Love You As Misfortune Loves Orphans, As Fire Loves Innocence, And As Justice Loves To Sit And Watch While Everything Goes Wrong.

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.

Never Mind What My Name Is,” The Man Said. “no One Can Pronounce It Anyway. Just Call Me Sir.

Waiting Is One Of Life’s Hardships.

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

So Every So Often, When I Meet Someone Who's Honestly Appalled By My Books And Doesn't Understand Why They Would Be Attractive To People... I Find Such People Sort Of Charming, Even Though They Usually Don't Like Me.

The Only Thing He Cares About.

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.

...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

Siblings That Say They Never Fight Are Most Definitely Hiding Something

Hiding Something

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

Desperation Is Like A Spilled Drink; Even If It's Delicious, No One Will Get Near It. Cultivate An Aura Of Glamorous Unapproachability.

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.

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

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

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.

One Has To Adopt A Sort Of Zen Calm, In Which You Know You Wrote The Best Book That You Could At The Time.

There Are Some Secrets You Want To Keep To Yourself, Even If They Don't Matter. They Might Only Matter If You Keep Them Secret.

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.

So She Loved Him. She Just Did Immediately And Again Often And Clearly Naturally And Soundly And Obviously And Many Others.

Miracles Are Like Pimples, Because Once You Start Looking For Them You Find More Than You Ever Dreamed You'd See.

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.

You Would Run Much Slower If You Were Dragging Something Behind You, Like A Knapsack Or A Sheriff.

There Are So Many Movies Like This, Where You Thought You Were Smarter Than The Screen But The Director Was Smarter Than You, Of Course He's The One, Of Course It Was A Dream, Of Course She's Dead, Of Course, It's Hidden Right There, Of Course It's The Truth And You In Your Seat Have Failed To Notice In The Dark.

The Library Was One Enormous Room, With Long, High Metal Shelves And The Perfect Quiet That Libraries Provide For Anyone Looking For An Answer.

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.

The Expression 'those Who Can't Do, Teach' Is A Curious One, Because If You Look At The World , You'll See That Teachers Aren't Particularly Worse At Doing Things Than Anyone Else, So Perhaps The Expression Might Be Better Worded As 'nobody Can Do Anything

I Can See It, Ed, I Leaned Deeper Into You, Felt You Nodding Along With The Sounds In The Room, And Your Warmth Signaled Through To Me From Under Your Shirt, Lovely Strong, Safe And Right.

You Can Invent Things Like Automatic Popcorn Poppers. You Can Invent Things Like Steam-powered Window Washers. But You Can’t Invent More Time.

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.

The Moral Of Snow White Is Never Eat Apples.

The Mind Has A Thousand Eyes, And The Heart Has One:yet The Light Of A Whole Life Dies When Love Is Done.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For Every Teenager I Know, Having A Phone Is A Mixed Blessing, Because Your Parents Can Press A Button And Figure Out Where You Are.

Nobody Wants To Hear That You Will Try Your Best. It Is The Wrong Thing To Say. It Is Like Saying 'i Probably Won't Hit You With A Shovel.' Suddenly Everyone Is Afraid You Will Do The Opposite.

They Were Almond Cookies, Although They Could Have Been Made Of Spinach And Shoes For All I Cared. I Ate Eleven Of Them, Right In A Row. It Is Rude To Take The Last Cookie.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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Chestnuts In Stuffing Tastes Like Someone Chewed Up A Tree Branch And Then French-kissed It Into Your Mouth.

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 Very Easy To Say That The Important Thing Is To Try Your Best, But If You Are In Real Trouble The Most Important Thing Is Not Trying Your Best, But Getting To Safety.

When You Start Reading Nonfiction Books About Piracy, You Realize That It's Actually Just A History Of Desperate People.

A Long Time Ago, There Was No Such Thing As School, And Children Spent Their Days Learning A Trade, A Phrase Which Here Means "standing Around Doing Tedious Tasks Under The Instruction Of A Bossy Adult." In Time, However, People Realized That The Children Could Be Allowed To Sit, And The First School Was Invented.

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.

All His Life, Klaus Had Believed That If You Read Enough Books, You Could Solve Any Problem, But Now He Wasn't So Sure.

I'm Not Very Good At The Accordion. If I Played Guitar, I Wouldn't Be On Anyone's Album. But Because I Play The Accordion And No One Else Does, I End Up Doing Strange Things.

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.

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.

Any Playlist Without Prince Is No Friend Of Mine.

This Is Love, And The Trouble With It: It Can Make You Embarrassed. Love Is Really Liking Someone A Whole Lot And Not Wanting To Screw That Up. Everybody's Chewed Over This. This Unites Us, This Part Of Love.

Life Never End When You Are In It.

-most People Would Say That She's Beautiful. -that's Because She's Been With Most People.

Xenial' Is A Word Which Refers To The Giving Of Gifts To Strangers. . . . I Know That Having A Good Vocabulary Doesn't Guarantee That I'm A Good Person. . . . But It Does Mean I've Read A Great Deal. And In My Experience, Well-read People Are Less Likely To Be Evil.

Guarantees That

There Are Few Sights Sadder Than A Ruined Book.

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.

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.

For Beatrice, I Cherished, You Perished, The World's Been Nightmarished.

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.

It Is One Of The Peculiar Truths Of Life That People Often Say Things That They Know Full Well Are Ridiculous.

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