...that's not why we broke up. I love it, I miss it, I hate to give it back to you, this complicated thing, it's why we stayed together

Occasionally there are parents who say, "I brought my child so he or she could learn what the career of a writer is like, and you did this long theatrical performance instead, and I'm very disappointed."

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

The smell of cooking food is often a calming one.

It is always terrible to be told to go play with people one doesn't know.

With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.

They looked at each other like a pair of parentheses.