Reader: Dear Mr. Snicket, What is the best way to keep a secret? Lemony Snicket : Tell it to everyone you know, but pretend you are kidding.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

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.

There are many difficult things in this world to hide, but a secret is not one of them.

Undeveloped, the whole thing,tossed into a box before we really had a chance to know what we had, and that's why we broke up.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong.

Anyone who gives you a cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven is a friend for life.