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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.

-Daniel Handler

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There's Information About Everything

Daniel Handler

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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.

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

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.

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

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

Well-read People Are Less Likely To Be Evil.

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

If You Have Ever Lost A Loved One, Then You Know Exactly How It Feels. And If You Have Not, Then You Cannot Possibly Imagine It.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

There Is No Worse Sound In The World Than Someone Who Cannot Play The Violin But Insists On Doing So Anyway.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

In General, Of Course, A Stranger Who Tries To Get You Into An Automobile Is Anything But Noble, And In General A Person Who Quotes Great American Novelists Is Anything But Treacherous, And In General A Man Who Says You Needn't Worry About Money, Or A Man Who Smokes Cigarettes, Is Somewhere In Between.

Numbersign Questionmark You" And "asterisk Exclamation Point The World.

Exclamation Points

Don’t Repeat Yourself. It’s Not Only Repetitive, It’s Redundant, And People Have Heard It Before.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There Was Something I Was Always Very Good At, However, And That Was Teaching Myself Not To Be Frightened While Frightening Things Are Going On. It Is Difficult To Do This, But I Had Learned. It Is Simply A Matter Of Putting One’s Fear Aside, Like The Vegetable On The Plate You Don’t Want To Touch Until All Of Your Rice And Chicken Are Gone, And Getting Frightened Later, When One Is Out Of Danger. Sometimes I Imagine I Will Be Frightened For The Rest Of My Life Because Of All Of The Fear I Put Aside During My Time In Stain’d-by-the-sea.

A Mystery Is Solved With A Story.

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

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.

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.

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.

When Things Don't Go Right, Go Left

This Is My Knife. It Is Very Sharp And Very Eager To Hurt You.

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?

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.

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.

How Can Someone So Wonderful Do Something So Terrible?

Like People, Animals Will Become Frightened And Likely Do Whatever You Say If You Whip Them Enough.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Love Was In The Air, So Both Of Us Walked Through Love On Our Way To The Corner.

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

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

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.

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

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

Reading Is One Form Of Escape. Running For Your Life Is Another.

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."

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

The Hallway Was Lined With Numbered Doors, Odd Numbers On One Side And Even Numbers On The Other, And Large Ornamental Vases, Too Large To Hold Flowers And Too Small To Hold Spies.

Assumptions Are Dangerous Things To Make, And Like All Dangerous Things To Make - Bombs, For Instance, Or Strawberry Shortcake - If You Make Even The Tiniest Mistake You Can Find Yourself In Terrible Trouble.

Finding Yourself

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

Friends For Life

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

Nobody Wants To Fall Into A Safety Net, Because It Means The Structure In Which They've Been Living Is In A State Of Collapse And They Have No Choice But To Tumble Downwards. However, It Beats The Alternative.

The Real Santa Claus Is At The Mall.

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

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

Even Though There Are No Ways Of Knowing For Sure, There Are Ways Of Knowing For Pretty Sure.

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.

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.

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.

I Have Produced Things That I Would Say Were Sincerely Cheerful. But Then I Am Reminded By Other People That No One Else Would See Them That Way.

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.

All Cannot Be Lost When There Is Still So Much Being Found

Take It Back, Ed. Take It All Back.

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.

The Last Time I Saw You I Was Trying To Throw Thumbtacks Into Your Cradle!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

She Gave Me A Hug And For A Second I Was Embraced By A Body That Makes Me Want To Go Home And Never Eat Again.

If You Enjoy Books With Happy Endings Than You Are Better Off Reading Some Other Book.

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

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

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 . . .

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.

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

First Impression

Wrong Impression

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.

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

Series Of Unfortunate Events

Scolding Must Be Very, Very Fun, Otherwise Children Would Be Allowed To Do It. It Is Not Because Children Don’t Have What It Takes To Scold. You Need Only Three Things, Really. You Need Time, To Think Up Scolding Things To Say. You Need Effort, To Put These Scolding Things In A Good Order, So That The Scolding Can Be More And More Insulting To The Person Being Scolded. And You Need Chutzpah, Which Is A Word For The Sort Of Show-offy Courage It Takes To Stand In Front Of Someone And Give Them A Good Scolding, Particularly If They Are Exhausted And Sore And Not In The Mood To Hear It.

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

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

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.

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

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.

It Is Very Useful, When One Is Young, To Learn The Difference Between "literally" And "figuratively." If Something Happens Literally, It Actually Happens; If Something Happens Figuratively, It Feels Like It Is Happening. If You Are Literally Jumping For Joy, For Instance, It Means You Are Leaping In The Air Because You Are Very Happy. If You Are Figuratively Jumping For Joy, It Means You Are So Happy That You Could Jump For Joy, But Are Saving Your Energy For Other Matters.

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.

Just Because You Don't Understand It Doesn't Mean It Isn't So.

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.

With The Publishing Of The Basic Eight, It Was Often Assumed That I Was Really Immature And Callow, And With The Publishing Of Watch Your Mouth, It Was Assumed That I Was Oversexualized, And With Lemony Snicket, It's Often Assumed That I'm Erudite And Depressed. But All The Voices More Or Less Came Naturally To Me.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Everybody Has A Theory.

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

Why Haven't We Fixed Sick Yet? You Scientists There-- Put Down Those Starfish And Help Us. I Hereby Demand That All The People Who Are Good At Math Make The World Free Of Illness. The Rest Of Us Will Write You Epic Poems And Staple Them Together Into A Booklet.

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.

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.

Criminals Should Be Punished, Not Fed Pastries.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

There Are Few Sights Sadder Than A Ruined Book.

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

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

There Are Secrets Everywhere. I Think Everyone's Parents Have Secrets. You Just Have To Know Where To Look For Them.

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.

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.

Is It Fair For The Bears To Come Down To Where Humans Live, Looking For Food? Is It Fair For The Duke's Soldiers To Shoot At Them? Is It Fair For The Bears To Crush Them With Giant Snowballs? Often, If You Point Out Something That Isn't Fair, Someone Will Reply, "life Isn't Fair." What Is To Be Done With Such People?

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

...the Moron Who Thought Love Was Forever.

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

It 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Smell Of Cooking Food Is Often A Calming One.

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

The Only Thing He Cares About.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

My Love For You

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

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

Every Problem Has A Solution. Sometimes It Just Takes A Long Time To Find The Solution - Even If It's Right In Front Of Your Nose.

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

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.

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

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

Hup Hup Ha Ha Hammy Hee Hee!

I Know You Can't See It, Not You, Ed, But Maybe If I Tell You The Whole Plot You'll Understand It This Once, Because Even Now I Want You To See It. I Don't Love You Anymore, Of Course I Don't, But There's Still Something I Can Show You. You Know I Want To Be A Director, But You Never Truly See The Movies In My Head And That, Ed, Is Why We Broke Up.

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.

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.

I Was Once Almost Forced Off The Stage At A Large Chain Bookstore That Shall Remain Nameless, Because She Introduced Me As Lemony Snicket, And I Immediately Interrupted Her And Said, "oh No, Lemony Snicket Isn't Here," And Then She Tried To Cancel The Event Right Then And There.

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.

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.

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.

I Will Love You If I Never See You Again, And I Will Love You If I See You Every Tuesday.

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

Sometimes Words Are Not Enough.

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

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

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

I Didn't Realize This Was A Sad Occasion.

Series Of Unfortunate Events

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Oftentimes. When People Are Miserable, They Will Want To Make Other People Miserable, Too. But It Never Helps.

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