Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.

Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Olaf said. Not with you around," Violet agreed. I'm no worse than anyone else," Count Olaf said.

Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

I'm always loath to make generalizations about what is for children and what isn't. Certainly children's literature as a genre has some restrictions, so certain things will never pop up in a Snicket book. But I didn't know anything about writing for children when I started - this is the theme of naïveté creeping up on us once more - and I sort of still don't, and I'm happy that adults are reading them as well as children.

...everyone was right about you- prove them wrong.

One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.

You would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.