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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.

-Daniel Handler

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Various Parts Of My

Daniel Handler

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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.

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A Mystery Is Solved With A Story.

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.

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.

The Story Of The Baudelaires Takes Place In A Very Real World, Where Some People Are Laughed At Just Because They Have Something Wrong With Them, And Where Children Can Find Themselves All Alone In The World, Struggling To Understand The Mystery That Surrounds Them.

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.

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

People Aren't Either Wicked Or Noble. They're Like Chef's Salads, With Good Things And Bad Things Chopped And Mixed Together In A Vinaigrette Of Confusion And Conflict.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Prove Them Wrong

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.

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

You Can't Believe Everything You Read.

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

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.

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

Everybody Has A Theory.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Story Is About The Baudelaires. And They Are The Sort Of People Who Know That There’s Always Something. Something To Invent, Something To Read, Something To Bite, And Something To Do, To Make A Sanctuary, No Matter How Small. And For This Reason, I Am Happy To Say, The Baudelaires Were Very Fortunate Indeed.

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

My Love For You

Simply Put, Dramatic Irony Is When A Person Makes A Harmless Remark, And Someone Else Who Hears It Knows Something That Makes The Remark Have A Different, And Usually Unpleasant, Meaning. For Instance, If You Were In A Restaurant And Said Out Loud, "i Can't Wait To Eat The Veal Marsala I Ordered," And There Were People Around Who Knew That The Veal Marsala Was Poisoned And That You Would Die As Soon As You Took A Bite, Your Situation Would Be One Of Dramatic Irony.

My General Writing Preface Is To Write An Outline And Then Ignore About Half Of It, Both On A Micro Level With The Individual Book, And On A Macro Level With The Series As A Whole, And That's Pretty Much What's Happened.

In 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

What Should We Call Him?" Klaus Asked. "you Should Call Him Dr. Montgomery," Mr. Poe Replied, "unless He Tells You To Call Him Montgomery. Both His First And Last Names Are Montgomery, So It Doesn't Make Much Difference." "his Name Is Montgomery Montgomery?" Klaus Said, Smiling. "yes, And I'm Sure He's Very Sensitive About That, So Don't Ridicule Him," Mr. Poe Said, Coughing Again Into His Handkerchief.

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."

Most Schools Have A Loud System Of Loud Bells, Which Startle The Students And Teachers At Regular Intervals And Remind Them That Time Is Passing Even More Slowly Than It Seems.

A Passport, As I'm Sure You Know, Is A Document That One Shows To Government Officials Whenever One Reaches A Border Between Two Countries, So That The Official Can Learn Who You Are, Where You Were Born, And How You Look When Photographed Unflatteringly.

They're Book Addicts.

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

Miracles Can Happen

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.

Take It Back, Ed. Take It All Back.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

A New Experience Can Be Extremely Pleasurable, Or Extremely Irritating, Or Somewhere In Between, And You Never Know Until You Try It Out.

New Experiences

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.

Lemony Snicket. Now, I'm Told - The Books, Of Course, Starting From The Very First One, Became Hugely Popular, Selling Millions And Millions. And I Understand That When You Used To Go Around To Talk To Your Very Young Fans, You Would Appear As Lemony Snicket's Representative Or Agent.

The Expression "following Suit" Is A Curious One, Because It Has Nothing To Do With Walking Behind A Matching Set Of Clothing. If You Follow Suit, It Means You Do The Same Thing Somebody Else Has Just Done. If All Of Your Friends Decided To Jump Off A Bridge Into The Icy Waters Of An Ocean Or River, For Instance, And You Jumped In Right After Them, You Would Be Following Suit. You Can See Why Following Suit Can Be A Dangerous Thing To Do, Because You Could End Up Drowning Simply Because Somebody Else Thought Of It First.

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

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

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

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

Series Of Unfortunate Events

I Don't Know If You've Ever Noticed This, But First Impressions Are Often Entirely Wrong. You Can Look At A Painting For The First Time, For Example, And Not Like It At All, But After Looking At It A Little Longer You May Find It Very Pleasing. The First Time You Try Gorgonzola Cheese You May Find It Too Strong, But When You Are Older You May Want To Eat Nothing But Gorgonzola Cheese. Klaus, When Sunny Was Born, Did Not Like Her At All, But By The Time She Was Six Weeks Old The Two Of Them Were Thick As Thieves. Your Initial Opinion On Just About Anything May Change Over Time.

First Impression

The Only Thing He Cares About.

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.

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

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?

A Man Of My Acquaintance Once Wrote A Poem Called "the Road Less Traveled", Describing A Journey He Took Through The Woods Along A Path Most Travelers Never Used. The Poet Found That The Road Less Traveled Was Peaceful But Quite Lonely, And He Was Probably A Bit Nervous As He Went Along, Because If Anything Happened On The Road Less Traveled, The Other Travelers Would Be On The Road More Frequently Traveled And So Couldn't Hear Him As He Cried For Help. Sure Enough, That Poet Is Dead.

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.

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

...the Moron Who Thought Love Was Forever.

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

He Who Hesitates Is Lost

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

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

Love Can Smack You Like A Seagull, And Pour All Over Your Feet Like Junk Mail.

I Guess We’ll Be Traveling In Uncharted Waters.” “that’ll Be Fun,” Phil Said.

Uncharted Waters

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

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.

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

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."

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

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.

All The Secrets Of The World Are Contained In Books. Read At Your Own Risk.

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.

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

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

Goodness! Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus And Hera! Mary And Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't Touch Her! Grab Her! Move Closer! Run Away! Don't Move! Kill The Snake! Leave It Alone! Give It Some Food! Don't Let It Bite Her! Lure The Snake Away! Here, Snakey! Here, Snakey Snakey!

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."

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

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.

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.

Never, Under Any Circumstances, Let The Virginian Wolfsnake Near A Typewriter.

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

Death Is Something You Cannot Escape, Such As Death, Or A Cheesecake That Has Curdled, Both Of Which Always Turn Up Sooner Later.

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 . . .

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

We Are A Nation Of Children Letting Horrible Things Happen, And Flunking Calc.

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.

The Rinsed Foam Swirled Into One Drain That Always Clogged Come October When The Maples Dropped Canadian Propaganda Over Everything.

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

Young Writers Should Read Books Past Bedtime And Write Things Down In Notebooks When They Are Supposed To Be Doing Something Else.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

Hup Hup Ha Ha Hammy Hee Hee!

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

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

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.

Count Olaf Certainly Does Sound Evil. Imagine Forcing Children To Stand Near A Stove!

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

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.

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

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

I'm Sure You Have Heard It Said That Appearance Does Not Matter So Much, And That It Is What's On The Inside That Counts. This Is, Of Course, Utter Nonsense, Because If It Were True Then People Who Were Good On This Inside Would Would Never Have To Comb Their Hair Or Take A Bath, And The Whole World Would Smell Even Worse Than It Already Does.

Blinded Following The Blindfolded

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

No Reality Has The Power To Dispel A Dream.

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

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.

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.

It Looked Exhausting And Pointless, Two Things That Should Be Avoided At All Costs

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

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.

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

First Impression

Wrong Impression

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

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'.

For Beatrice- When We Were Together I Felt Breathless. Now You Are.

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

I Opened My Mouth And Kissed You Then, The First Time All Night, Attacked You And Surrendered Completely, And Let’s Get Out Of Here. I’m Ready, I’m Finished, Let’s Not Break Up, No, No. Take Me Home, My Boyfriend, My Love.

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

Sometime During Your Life—in Fact, Very Soon—you May Find Yourself Reading A Book, And You May Notice That A Book’s First Sentence Can Often Tell You What Sort Of Story Your Book Contains.

Finding Yourself

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

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.

Do The Scary Thing First, And Get Scared Later.

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.

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

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

One Of The Remarkable Things About Love Is That, Despite Very Irritating People Writing Poems And Songs About How Pleasant It Is, It Really Is Quite Pleasant.

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

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.

I Was So Grateful That Lemony Snicket Wasn't The Worst Movie Ever Made That I Overlooked Many Things That Might Have Otherwise Upset Me.

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

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

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

...there's Not Enough Ink And Paper To Say All I Wanted.

...that's Not Why We Broke Up. I Love It, I Miss It, I Hate To Give It Back To You, This Complicated Thing, It's Why We Stayed Together

For Beatrice - You Will Always Be In My Mind, In My Heart And In Your Grave.

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

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.

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.

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.

There Are Few Sights Sadder Than A Ruined Book.

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

I 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.

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

Sometimes, Even The Best Of Plans Will Occur To You When It Is Too Late.

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.

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

They Looked At Each Other Like A Pair Of Parentheses.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Always Cruel To Laugh At People, Of Course, Although Sometimes If They Are Wearing An Ugly Hat It Is Hard To Control Yourself.

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.

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.

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 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.

Grammar Is The Greatest Joy In Life, Don't You Find?

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.

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

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.' [...]

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.

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

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

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.

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