The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up.

I decided that it might be interesting to have terrible things happen to orphans over and over again.

I liked, I admit, that we didn’t pretend there hadn’t been other girls. There was always a girl on you in the halls at school, like they came free with a backpack.

I was so grateful that Lemony Snicket wasn't the worst movie ever made that I overlooked many things that might have otherwise upset me.

In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know.

It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.

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.