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."

I'm always loath to make generalizations about what is for children and what isn't. Certainly children's literature as a genre has some restrictions, so certain things will never pop up in a Snicket book. But I didn't know anything about writing for children when I started - this is the theme of naïveté creeping up on us once more - and I sort of still don't, and I'm happy that adults are reading them as well as children.

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.

Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated.

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.

Death is something you cannot escape, such as death, or a cheesecake that has curdled, both of which always turn up sooner later.

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.