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.

This is love, to sit with someone you've known forever in a place you've been meaning to go, and watching as their life happens to them until you stand up and it's time to go.

and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.

It is terribly rude to tell people that their troubles are boring.

Young writers should read books past bedtime and write things down in notebooks when they are supposed to be doing something else.

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.

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.