The way that the stories go in the Snicket books is just the way stories naturally go to me. They're full of misery, and yet the misery ends up being slightly hilarious. And in terms of the warnings on the back of the books, that really started as an honest assessment of their marketability.

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.

Well-read people are less likely to be evil.

A bolt from the blue.

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.

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.

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.