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The Violins Waltzed. The Cellos And Basses Provided Accompaniment. The Violas Mourned Their Fate, While The Concertmaster Showed Off. The Flutes Did Bird Imitations…repeatedly, And The Reed Instruments Had The Good Taste To Admire My Jacket. The Trumpets Held A Parade In Honor Of Our Great Nation, While The French Horns Waxed Nostalgic About Something Or Other. The Trombones Had Too Much To Drink. The Percussion Beat The Band, And The Tuba Stayed Home Playing Cards With His Landlady, The Harp, Taking Sips Of Warm Milk A Blue Little Cup. “but The Composer Is Still Dead.

-Daniel Handler

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The Violins Waltzed. The

Daniel Handler

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The Violins Waltzed. The Cellos And Basses Provided Accompaniment. The Violas Mourned Their Fate, While The Concertmaster Showed Off. The Flutes Did Bird Imitations…repeatedly, And The Reed Instruments Had The Good Taste To Admire My Jacket. The Trumpets Held A Parade In Honor Of Our Great Nation, While The French Horns Waxed Nostalgic About Something Or Other. The Trombones Had Too Much To Drink. The Percussion Beat The Band, And The Tuba Stayed Home Playing Cards With His Landlady, The Harp, Taking Sips Of Warm Milk A Blue Little Cup. “but The Composer Is Still Dead.

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

You Can't Believe Everything You Read.

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

If You Feel . . . That Well-read People Are Less Likely To Be Evil, And A World Full Of People Sitting Quietly With Good Books In Their Hands Is Preferable To World Filled With Schisms And Sirens And Other Noisy And Troublesome Things, Then 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.

But One Type Of Book That Practically No One Likes To Read Is A Book About The Law. Books About The Law Are Notorious For Being Very Long, Very Dull, And Very Difficult To Read. This Is One Reason Many Lawyers Make Heaps Of Money. The Money Is An Incentive - The Word "incentive" Here Means "an Offered Reward To Persuade You To Do Something You Don't Want To Do - To Read Long, Dull, And Difficult Books.

There Are Times To Stay Put, And What You Want Will Come To You, And There Are Times To Go Out Into The World And Find Such A Thing For Yourself.

I’m Reminded Of A Book My Father Used To Read Me,” She Said. “a Bunch Of Elves And Things Get Into A Huge War Over A Piece Of Jewelry That Everybody Wants But Nobody Can Wear.

That Night Was A Dark Day. Of Course, All Nights Are Dark Days, Because Night Is Simply A Badly Lit Version Of Day.

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.

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

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.

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

My Love For You

If You Have Ever Slept In A Covered Casserole Dish On The Highest Peak Of A Mountain Range, Then You Know That It Is An Uncomfortable Place To Lay One's Head, Even If You Find A Dish Towel Inside It That Can Serve As A Blanket.

Mountain Ranges

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.

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.

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.

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.

This World Is Suchier Than We Are, And The Best Thing To Do Is Keep Moving And Find Your Keys.

...the Moron Who Thought Love Was Forever.

I'm Always Interested To See What Films Are Made Of Books. I Kind Of Don't Participate As A Filmgoer In Any Kind Of Debate About What's Better, The Book Or The Movie. So I Think It's Interesting When People Want To Do It.

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

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

And Then Like A Song We'd Forgotten Was Even On The Mix, You Stepped Into The House And My Whole Life.

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

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.

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

No Matter Who You Are, No Matter Where You Live, And No Matter How Many People Are Chasing You, What You Don't Read Is Often As Important As What You Do Read.

Everyone, At Some Point In Their Lives, Wakes Up In The Middle Of The Night With The Feeling That They Are All Alone In The World, And That Nobody Loves Them Now And That Nobody Will Ever Love Them, And That They Will Never Have A Decent Night's Sleep Again And Will Spend Their Lives Wandering Blearily Around A Loveless Landscape, Hoping Desperately That Their Circumstances Will Improve, But Suspecting, In Their Heart Of Hearts, That They Will Remain Unloved Forever. The Best Thing To Do In These Circumstances Is To Wake Somebody Else Up, So That They Can Feel This Way, Too.

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.

I’m Happier Than A Pig Eating Bacon!

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

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.

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.

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.

That Night It Felt That Somehow By Flicking Them Off The Roof, The Matches Would Burn Down Everything, The Sparks From The Tips Of The Flames, Torching The World And All The Heartbroken People In It.

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.

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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.

Is It Useful To Feel Fear, Because It Prepares You For Nasty Events, Or Is It Useless, Because Nasty Events Will Occur Whether You Are Frightened Or Not?

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

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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.

Keep Anyone With Whom You Can Read In Silence.

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Do The Scary Thing First, And Get Scared Later.

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

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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.

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.

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Waiting Is One Of Life’s Hardships.

Any Playlist Without Prince Is No Friend Of Mine.

A Mystery Is Solved With A Story.

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

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

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

Waiting Is One Of Life's Hardships. It Is Hard Enough To Wait For Chocolate Cream Pie While Burnt Roast Beef Is Still On Your Plate. It Is Plenty Difficult To Wait For Halloween When The Tedious Month Of September Is Still Ahead Of You. But To Wait For One's Adopted Uncle To Come Home While A Greedy And Violent Man Is Upstairs Was One Of The Worst Waits The Baudelaires Had Ever Experienced.

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

There Is A Kind Of Crying I Hope You Have Not Experienced, And It Is Not Just Crying About Something Terrible That Has Happened, But A Crying For All Of The Terrible Things That Have Happened, Not Just To You But To Everyone You Know And To Everyone You Don’t Know And Even The People You Don’t Want To Know, A Crying That Cannot Be Diluted By A Brave Deed Or A Kind Word, But Only By Someone Holding You As Your Shoulders Shake And Your Tears Run Down Your Face.

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.

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

If We Wait Until We're Ready, We'll Be Waiting For The Rest Of Our Lives.

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

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

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.

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

Having A Personal Philosophy Is Like Having A Pet Marmoset, Because It May Be Very Attractive When You Acquire It, But There May Be Situations When It Will Not Come In Handy At All.

And A Refrigerator May Hold A Basket Of Strawberries, Which Would Be Important If A Maniac Said To You, "if You Don't Give Me A Basket Of Strawberries Right Now, I'm Going To Poke You With This Large Stick." But When The Two Elder Baudelaires And Quigley Quagmire Opened The Refrigerator, They Found Nothing That Would Help Someone Who Was Wounded, Dying Of Thirst, Or Being Threatened By A Strawberry-crazed, Stick-carrying Maniac.

The Way Sadness Works Is One Of The Strange Riddles Of The World. If You Are Stricken With A Great Sadness, You May Feel As If You Have Been Set Aflame, Not Only Because Of The Enormous Pain, But Also Because Your Sadness May Spread Over Your Life, Like Smoke From An Enormous Fire.

Tell It To Everyone You Know, But Pretend You're Kidding.

When You Say, "history Is Written By The Winners," You Like To Think About Someone Who Isn't You. You Want To Think, "oh, That's The Juggernaut I'm Standing Against." But You're Probably Part Of It.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I Don't Know If You've Ever Noticed This, But First Impressions Are Often Entirely Wrong.

First Impression

Wrong Impression

I Go To Bed Early And Rise Late And Feel As If I Have Hardly Slept, Probably Because I Have Been Reading Almost The Entire Time.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You’re Just Jealous Of Me Because I’m A Tap-dancing Ballerina Fairy Princess Veterinarian!

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

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.

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.

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

If You Are Trying To Fool A Farsighted Or Dimwitted Person, A Veiled Facial Disguise Might Be Enough.

Every New Promise Was Like Something Heavy I Had To Carry, With No Place To Put Anything Down.

He Looked Like The Sort Of Person Who Would Tell You That He Did Not Have An Umbrella To Lend You When He Actually Had Several And Simply Wanted To See You Get Soaked.

There Are Many Reasons, Of Course, Why Someone Might Snap Their Fingers And Grin. If You Heard Some Pleasing Music, For Instance, You Might Snap Your Fingers And Grin To Demonstrate That The Music Had Charms That Could Soothe Your Savage Breast. If You Were Employed As A Spy, You Might Snap Your Fingers And Grin In Order To Deliver A Message In Secret Snapping-and-grinning Code.

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

Life Isn't Fair," He Said, In His Undisguised Voice, And For Once The Baudelaire Orphans Agreed With Every Word The Man Said.

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

Whenever You Are Examining Someone Else's Belongings, You Are Bound To Learn Many Interesting Things About The Person Of Which You Were Not Previously Aware.

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.

Hal Is On His Way." The Nurse Announced Reentering The Room.

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

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

Lately It Has Become More And More Difficult To Attend Dinner Parties Without The Evening Ending In Gunfire Or Tapioca.

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.

But Just Suddenly I Really, Really Needed To See You Again Right That Minute, That Night.

Fetching Objects For People Who Are Too Lazy To Fetch Them For Themselves Is Never A Pleasant Task, Particularly When The People Are Insulting You.

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.

Like A Church Bell, A Coffin, And A Vat Of Melted Chocolate, A Supply Closet Is Rarely A Comfortable Place To Hide.

How Wrong To Think I Was Anyone Else, Like Thinking Grass Stains Make You A Beautiful View, Like Getting Kissed Makes You Kissable, Like Feeling Warm Makes You Coffee, Like Liking Movies Makes You A Director. How Utterly Incorrect To Think It Any Other Way, A Box Of Crap Is Treasures, A Boy Smiling Means It, A Gentle Moment Is A Life Improved.

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.

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

I Never Want To Be Away From You Again, Except At Work, In The Restroom Or When One Of Us Is At A Movie The Other Does Not Want To See.

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

I Always Think It's Silly When People Talk About Works Of Culture Taking Risks. Because There's Not Any Risk Involved.

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.

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

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

Besides Getting Several Paper Cuts In The Same Day Or Receiving The News That Someone In Your Family Has Betrayed You To Your Enemies, One Of The Most Unpleasant Experiences In Life Is A Job Interview.

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

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

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.

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.

There Are Few Sights Sadder Than A Ruined Book.

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 Made Pretty Clear To The People At Paramount And Dreamworks That, If They Wanted Lemony Snicket To Comment, He Would Be Completely Horrified By The Entire Film. And As Long As They Understood That, It Was Okay. I'm Not Much Of A Fan Of Dvd Commentaries Myself, So This Was My Way Of Getting Revenge, In A Sense, For All The Puffed-up Directors And Stars Who Talk Endlessly About The Self-aggrandizing Minutiae Of Making A Movie.

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.

Hello, Freaky Peoples!

I Have This Fantasy That The Second Movie Would Begin With A Brief Statement By All Of The Young Actors Who Had Played The Children In The First Movie, Explaining How It Had Ruined Their Lives, So We Would Catch Up With Emily Browning Drinking Heavily In The Back Of A Burlesque Bar, And Maybe Liam Aiken Would Be Living Underneath A Bridge, And Then Instead Of The Twins Who Played Sunny, We Would Just Try To Find The Oldest Woman In The World, And Get An Interview With Her Sitting In A Trailer Park.

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

It Is Easy To Decide On What Is Wrong To Wear To A Party, Such As Deep-sea Diving Equipment Or A Pair Of Large Pillows, But Deciding What Is Right Is Much Trickier.

Are You Who I Think You Are?

It Is Much, Much Worse To Receive Bad News Through The Written Word Than By Somebody Simply Telling You, And I’m Sure You Understand Why. When Somebody Simply Tells You Bad News, You Hear It Once, And That’s The End Of It. But When Bad News Is Written Down, Whether In A Letter Or A Newspaper Or On Your Arm In Felt Tip Pen, Each Time You Read It, You Feel As If You Are Receiving The Bad News Again And Again.

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.

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

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

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

Series Of Unfortunate Events

For Some Stories, It's Easy. The Moral Of 'the Three Bears,' For Instance, Is "never Break Into Someone Else's House.' The Moral Of 'snow White' Is 'never Eat Apples.' The Moral Of World War I Is 'never Assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

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

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

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.

Beef. Yes. Roast Beef. It's The Swedish Term For Beef That Is Roasted.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I Didn't Realize This Was A Sad Occasion.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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

Having An Aura Of Menace Is Like Having A Pet Weasel, Because You Rarely Meet Someone Who Has One, And When You Do, It Makes You Want To Hide Under The Coffee Table.

Every Night I Give A Violin Recital For Six Hours, And Attendance Is Mandatory. The Word 'mandatory' Means That If You Don't Show Up, You Have To Buy Me A Large Bag Of Candy And Watch Me Eat It.

The Whole Thing Of What I’ve Been Trying,” You Said, “is That You’re Different, And You Keep Asking About The Other Girls, But What I Mean Is That I Don’t Think About Them, Because Of The Way You Are.

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

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.

But The Three Siblings Were Not Born Yesterday. Violet Was Born More Than Fifteen Years Before This Particular Wednesday, And Klaus Was Born Approximately Two Years After That, And Even Sunny, Who Had Just Passed Out Of Babyhood, Was Not Born Yesterday. Neither Were You, 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

I Think If I Were Walking Someplace And I Saw A Corpse My Brain Would Tell Me It Was A Million Things Before I Believed It Was A Corpse.

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.

Everything Else Has Vanished, So You Take Them Now. Maybe If You're The One Keeping Them, I'll Be The One Feeling Better.

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.

A Successful Villain Should Have All These Things At His Or Her Villainous Fingertips, Or Else Give Up Villainy Altogether And Try To Lead A Life Of Decency, Integrity, And Kindness, Which Is Much More Challenging And Noble, If Not Always Quite As Exciting.

Everybody Has A Theory.

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

Get Out Of My Way, You Cakesniffers!” Said A Rude, Violent, And Filthy Little Girl, Shoving The Baudelaire Orphans Aside As She Dashed By.

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.

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.

After A Certain Age, You Couldn't Even Say Where You Were From. You Went Someplace, And Lived There. And Then You Went Someplace Else.

What Do Your Parents Know, About Surviving?

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.

When Things Don't Go Right, Go Left

There Are Two Types Of Panicking: Standing Still And Not Saying A Word, And Leaping All Over The Place Babbling Anything That Comes Into Your Head.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

13. 99 Percent Is A Very Large Percentage. For Instance, Easily 99 Percent Of People Want A Roof Over Their Heads, Food On Their Tables, And The Occasional Slice Of Cake For Dessert. Surely An Arrangement Can Be Made With That Niggling 1 Percent Who Disagree.

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

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Stanley Kubrick

Warren E. Burger

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