It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety.

I don’t smoke, although it looks fantastic in films. But I light matches on those thinking blank nights when I crawl my route out onto the roof of the garage and the sky while my parents sleep innocent and the lonely cars move sparse on the faraway streets, when the pillow won’t stay cool and the blankets bother my body no matter how I move or lie still. I just sit with my legs dangling and light matches and watch them flicker away.

Boredom is not black licorice, Snicket," she said. "There's no reason to share it with me.

Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries.

Life isn't fair," he said, in his undisguised voice, and for once the Baudelaire orphans agreed with every word the man said.

I do think of emotions as being on a circular path, so you can feel terrible and terrible and terrible, and then all of a sudden it becomes quite funny.

The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done.