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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.

-Daniel Handler

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There Are Many Reasons,

Daniel Handler

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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.

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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.

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

I'm Not A Stranger," I Said, And Pointed To His Book. "i'm Someone Who Reads The Same Authors You Do.

In Love, As In Life, One Misheard Word Can Be Tremendously Important. If You Tell Someone You Love Them, For Instance, You Must Be Absolutely Certain That They Have Replied "i Love You Back" And Not "i Love Your Back" Before You Continue The Conversation.

Someone You Love

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.

It Is Always Tedious When Someone Tells You That If You Don't Stop Crying, They Will Give You Something To Cry About, Because If You Are Crying Then You Already Have Something To Cry About, And So There Is No Reason For Them To Give You Anything Additional To Cry About, Thank You Very Much.

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

Never Look A Gift Lion In The Mouth.

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

Long Distance Relationship

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

There Are Some Things We Might Not Know,but That Doesnt Mean We Should Give Up.we Can Find Out What We Need To Know.we Can Find Out Everything

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

They Looked At Each Other Like A Pair Of Parentheses.

There Is A Pair Of Snakes Who Have Learned To Drive A Car So Recklessly That They Would Run You Over In The Street And Never Stop To Apologize.

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

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.

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.

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures" Is An Aphorism Which Here Means "sometimes You Need To Change Your Facial Expression In Order To Create A Workable Disguise." The Quoting Of An Aphorism, Such As "it Takes A Village To Raise A Child," "no News Is Good News," And "love Conquers All," Rarely Indicates That Something Helpful Is About To Happen, Which Is Why We Provide Our Volunteers With A Disguise Kit In Addition To Helpful Phrases Of Advice.

Are You Who I Think You Are?

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

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

You Meet People Who Are In Pain In Life And Love And You Forgive Them For Behaving The Way They Do.

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

Life Never End When You Are In It.

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

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.

If You Are Interested In Happy Endings, You Would Be Better Off Reading Some Other Book. In This Book, Not Only Is There No Happy Ending, There Is No Happy Beginning And Very Few Happy Things In The Middle. This Is Because Not Very Many Happy Things Happened In The Lives Of The Three Baudelaire Youngsters.

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.

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.

Friends Can Make You Feel That The World Is Smaller And Less Sneaky Than It Really Is, Because You Know People Who Have Similar Experiences.

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.

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.

He Who Hesitates Is Lost

E!" Klaus Cried. "e As In Exit!" The Baudelaires Ran Down E As In Exit, But When They Reached The Last Cabinet, The Row Was Becoming F As In Falling File Cabinets, G As In Go The Other Way! And H As In How In The World Are We Going To Escape?

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

I Found Powerful The Idea That Everything We Have Is, In Effect, Stolen From Everybody Else.

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

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

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.

Wherever There’s A Conductor, You’re Sure To Find A Dead Composer!

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.

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.

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.

The Thing You Hope Will Never Happen To You Might Just Happen To Someone Else Instead, Who Has Been Spending Their Life Dreading The Thing That Will Happen To You.

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

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.

We Are All Told To Ignore Bullies. It's Something They Teach You, And They Can Teach You Anything. It Doesn't Mean You Learn It. It Doesn't Mean You Believe It. One Should Never Ignore Bullies. One Should Stop Them.

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

You Must Be All A-tingle With Excitement.' 'i Guess So,' I Said, But I Did Not Feel A-tingle. I Did Not Feel A-anything.

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

Thinking About Something Is Like Picking Up A Stone When Taking A Walk, Either While Skipping Rocks On The Beach, For Example, Or Looking For A Way To Shatter The Glass Doors Of A Museum. When You Think About Something, It Adds A Bit Of Weight To Your Walk, And As You Think About More And More Things You Are Liable To Feel Heavier And Heavier, Until You Are So Burdened You Cannot Take Any Further Steps, And Can Only Sit And Stare At The Gentle Movements Of The Ocean Waves Or Security Guards, Thinking Too Hard Bout Too Many Things To Do Anything Else.

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.

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

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

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.

Tell Me What It Is, Or Prepare To Eat Harpoon.

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

Any Playlist Without Prince Is No Friend Of Mine.

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.

I Love No One But You, I Have Discovered, But You Are Far Away And I Am Here Alone. Then This Is My Life And Maybe, However Unlikely, I'll Find My Way Back There. Or Maybe, One Day, I'll Settle For Second Best. And On That Same Day, Hell Will Freeze Over, The Sun Will Burn Out And The Stars Will Fall From The Sky.

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.

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

How Do You Forget Something? You Just Walk Away From It, Those Who Are Still Alive. There Are So Few Clearings In Our Hearts And Minds, So Few Places Where Something Can't Grow On Top Of Whatever Happened To Us Before, And This Is Love Too.

What Do Your Parents Know, About Surviving?

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.

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.

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

I Wrote Rick Before I Was Published, And I Had No Vision Of It, Really. It Was Just A Story That Occurred To Me, And That Put Its Little Claws In My Brain, And I Wrote It, And I Showed It To A Couple People, And They All Said, "this Is Ghastly."

Well-read People Are Less Likely To Be Evil.

And What Might Seem To Be A Series Of Unfortunate Events May In Fact Be The First Steps Of A Journey.

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.

What Happens In A Certain Place Can Stain Your Feelings For That Location, Just As Ink Can Stain A White Sheet. You Can Wash It, And Wash It, And Still Never Forget What Has Transpired - A Word Which Here Means 'happened, And Made Everybody Sad'.

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

'help Me,' Allison Says, But She Is Soft-spoken, And Everyone She Loves Is So Far Away.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Last Safe Place Is Safe No More.

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.

There Is Only Laughing Across The Land As The Car Moves You Along, On Your Way Someplace With Love In The Car.

Twenty-six,” You Said. “one For Each Day We’ve Been Together, Min.”somebody Oohed. Somebody Shushed Them. “and I Hope That Someday I’ll Do Another Something Stupid And I’ll Have To Say It A Million Times Because That’s How Long It’ll Be, Together With You, Min. With You.

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

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

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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 Didn't Realize This Was A Sad Occasion.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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

Are You Ready?" Klaus Asked Finally. "no," Sunny Answered. "me Neither," Violet Said, "but If We Wait Until We're Ready We'll Be Waiting For The Rest Of Our Lives, Let's Go.

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.

No Reality Has The Power To Dispel A Dream.

I Waited Just To See You At That Kind Of Peace, I Wanted To Be Beside You, I Wanted You To Wake Up Slowly Or Startle, Or Just Half Awaken And Turn Over Or Murmur My Name. I Wanted To Watch You Forever, Or Sleep Beside You Forever, Or Sleep Forever While You Woke And Watched Me, Something Forever Anyway. I Wanted To Kiss You, Rumple Your Hair, Rest Three Fingertips On Your Hip Bone Warm And Smooth, Wake You That Way Or Hush You Back To Sleep.

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

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.

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

You'd Think That Sweet Would Be A Land Far, Far Away From Irritating, But As It Turns Out They're Right Next Door, And Always Having Border Disputes.

A Good Thing To Do When One Is Sitting, Eating, And Resting Is To Have A Conversation.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Quoting Of An Aphorism, Like The Angry Barking Of A Dog Or The Smell Of Overcooked Broccoli, Rarely Indicates That Something Helpful Is About To Happen.

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.

It's Funny, Particularly When You're A Writer And You're Doing Well, You Have That Sense Of Like, "oh! My View Of The World Is The One That's Going To Be Published."

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.

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.

The More I Protest That I'm Not Lemony Snicket, And That I'm Daniel Handler Instead, The More It Becomes Clear To The Audience That I Am In Fact Lemony Snicket, That I Am In Fact Standing In Front Of Them.

Dumping You Times Infinity. Still Not Enough.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

It Is True, Of Course, That There Is No Way Of Knowing For Sure Whether Or Not You Can Trust Someone, For The Simple Reason That Circumstances Change All Of The Time. You Might Know Someone For Several Years, For Instance, And Trust Him Completely As Your Friend, But Circumstances Could Change And He Could Become Very Hungry, And Before You Knew It You Could Be Boiling In A Soup Pot, Because There Is No Way Of Knowing For Sure.

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

The Burning Of A Book Is A Sad, Sad Sight, For Even Though A Book Is Nothing But Ink And Paper, It Feels As If The Ideas Contained In The Book Are Disappearing As The Pages Turn To Ashes And The Cover And Binding--which Is The Term For The Stitching And Glue That Holds The Pages Together--blacken And Curl As The Flames Do Their Wicked Work. When Someone Is Burning A Book, They Are Showing Utter Contempt For All Of The Thinking That Produced Its Ideas, All Of The Labor That Went Into Its Words And Sentences, And All Of The Trouble That Befell The Author . . .

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

I Think We'll Always Miss Our Parents. But I Think We Can Miss Them Without Being Miserable All The Time. After All, They Wouldn't Want Us To Be Miserable.

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

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

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

There Are Some Who Go Through Life With A Shadow Hanging Over Them, Particularly If They Live In A Building Which Has Long Wide Awnings.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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

I Suppose I'll Have To Add The Force Of Gravity To My List Of Enemies.

This Knowledge Sits In My Heart, Heavy As A Paperweight.

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

Who Are You?" Violet Asked. It Is Confusing To Fall Asleep In The Daytime And Wake Up At Night. "what Are You Doing With Uncle Monty's Reptiles?" Klaus Asked. It Is Also Confusing To Realize You Have Been Sleeping On Stairs, Rather Than In A Bed Or Sleeping Bag. "dixnik?" Sunny Asked. It Is Always Confusing Why Anyone Would Choose To Wear A Plaid Shirt.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Prove Them Wrong

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'.

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

Miracles Can Happen, Even To Those Who Are Small, Flammable, And Dressed All In Black.

Miracles Can Happen

I Often Can't Remember Which Scenes Are And Aren't In The Final Product, Because I Saw So Many Different Versions Of The Lemony Snicket That I Forget Which Ended Up On The Cutting-room Floor.

How Do You Do?" Said Violet. "how Do You Do?" Said Klaus. "odo Yow!" Said Sunny.

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.

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

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

Friends For Life

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.

In America Now There Is This Phenomenon Called Helicopter Parenting, Where You're Hovering Over Your Child For The Whole Time. Parents There View Their Job As Being To Make Sure Their Kid Never Has A Moment Of Unhappiness. Of Course, As A Parent Myself, I Can Understand The Urge, But I Don't Know Whether It Would Be Healthy Or Possible.

To Hear The Phrase "our Only Hope" Always Makes One Anxious, Because It Means That If The Only Hope Doesn't Work, There Is Nothing Left.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

A Bolt From The Blue.

A Mystery Is Solved With A Story.

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.

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.

They Say In Every Library There Is A Single Book That Can Answer The Question That Burns Like A Fire In The Mind.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Easy Way To Train An Apprentice. My Two Tools Are Example And Nagging.

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.

Everyone On Earth Would Never Starve And Forever Find Love And Happiness, Since We Won, But If We’d Lost, They Would Have Gouged Out Our Eyes And Thrown Us Naked Onto Hot Coals And Poisonous Snakes For All The Cheering And Hugging At The End, Strangers Hugging Like The End Of The Omega Virus When Steve Sturmine Finds The Antidote.

You Can't Believe Everything You Read.

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

Do The Scary Thing First, And Get Scared Later.

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.' [...]

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.

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