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.

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.

It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing.

You may be right,' she said, a phrase which here meant 'I’m wrong, but I don’t have the courage to say so.

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.

If you know somebody very well, like your grandmother or your baby sister, you will know when they are real and when they are fake.

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.