But the law is an odd thing. For instance, one country in Europe has a law that requires all its bakers to sell bread at the exact same price. A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. And a town not too far from where you live has a law that bars me from coming within five miles of its borders.

Sooner or later, everyone's story has an unfortunate event or two...The solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life.

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.

I was in a pharmacy and I saw the warnings on the backs of poisonous substances, and I thought, "Well, that's what I can do." So I wrote a list of ingredients in the book, and warnings that they shouldn't consume those ingredients. The editor and the publisher thought that it was a great way to go in terms of reverse psychology, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me that it was reverse psychology. I just thought that it was sort of an honest assessment making clear that if you were timid or easily disturbed, you could turn away.

I’m happier than a pig eating bacon!

I find reading screenplays difficult, as they're only a roadmap for what a movie might end up being.

But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible.