Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.
Sometimes words are not enough. There are some circumstances so utterly wretched that I cannot describe them in sentences or paragraphs or even a whole series of books.
Neither were you [born yesterday], unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life.
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.
They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.
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.
I like to give people novels I think they would like, on no particular occasion - just when we're in a bookstore together. I like to receive reference books on my birthday.
Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don't care for spill orange soda all over themselves.
It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is really wrong is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right.
Are you ready?" Klaus asked finally. "No," Sunny answered. "Me neither," Violet said, "but if we wait until we're ready we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives, Let's go.
How did you do that?” Mr. Poe asked. “Nice girls shouldn’t know how to do such things.” “My sister is a nice girl,” Klaus said, “and she knows how to do all sorts of things.
I'm not very good at the accordion. If I played guitar, I wouldn't be on anyone's album. But because I play the accordion and no one else does, I end up doing strange things.
Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.
Love can smack you like a seagull, and pour all over your feet like junkmail. You can't be ready for such a thing any more than salt water taffy gets you ready for the ocean.
I’m reminded of a book my father used to read me,” she said. “A bunch of elves and things get into a huge war over a piece of jewelry that everybody wants but nobody can wear.
This is love, to sit with someone you've known forever in a place you've been meaning to go, and watching as their life happens to them until you stand up and it's time to go.
Most schools have a loud system of loud bells, which startle the students and teachers at regular intervals and remind them that time is passing even more slowly than it seems.
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 first told the idea to an editor I had met who, after reading one of my novels for adults that was set in a high school, had an idea that I might write something for children.
When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.
The hallway was lined with numbered doors, odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, and large ornamental vases, too large to hold flowers and too small to hold spies.
The difference between a house and a home is like the difference between a man and a woman-- it might be embarrassing to explain, but it would be very unusual to get them confused.
Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all.
It has been said that the hardest job in the world is raising a child, but the people who says this have probably never worked at a comb factory or captured pirates on the high seas.
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.
And then of course the music sprang up, lousy rock as bold and dull as a giant potato. "Love this song," Todd said, like it was unusually brave to like what was number one on the radio.
It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.
You see failed vocabulary in the adult world so often, and it's often because once you reach a certain age you're kind of embarrassed to go look up a word if you don't know what it means.
I can see it, Ed, I leaned deeper into you, felt you nodding along with the sounds in the room, and your warmth signaled through to me from under your shirt, lovely strong, safe and right.
Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of 'systematically assisting Sisyphus's stealthy, syst-susceptible sister,' which is easier done than said.
Today was a very cold and bitter day, as cold and bitter as a cup of hot chocolate, if the cup of hot chocolate had vinegar added to it and were placed in a refrigerator for several hours.
Sometime during your life—in fact, very soon—you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book’s first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains.
I love meeting people who have absolutely no sense of irony. It's really fascinating to imagine what it would be like to go through life without understanding even the most basic of ironies.
There's information about everything from poetry to pills, from picture frames to pyramids, and from pudding to psychology--and that's just in the P aisle, which we're walking down right now.
I had this idea about terrible things happening to orphans, and I knew it was such a horrible idea that the idea of writing it down and then submitting it professionally was obviously absurd.
I often can't remember which scenes are and aren't in the final product, because I saw so many different versions of the Lemony Snicket that I forget which ended up on the cutting-room floor.
Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it.
I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms.
There is nothing particularly wrong with salmon, of course, but like caramel candy, strawberry yogurt, or liquid carpet cleaner, if you eat too much of it you are not going to enjoy your meal.
Every last souvenir of the love we had, the prizes & the debris of this relationship, like the glitter in the gutter when the parade has passed, all the everything & whatnot kicked to the curb.
Figuratively, they escaped from Cout Olaf and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf's evil in loco parentis ways.
Nobody wants to hear that you will try your best. It is the wrong thing to say. It is like saying 'I probably won't hit you with a shovel.' Suddenly everyone is afraid you will do the opposite.
Every night I give a violin recital for six hours, and attendance is mandatory. The word 'mandatory' means that if you don't show up, you have to buy me a large bag of candy and watch me eat it.
It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.
The children of this world and the adults of this world are in entirely separate boats and only drift near each other when we need a ride from someone or when someone needs us to wash our hands.
I can't think of a story that doesn't have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it's dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.
You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.
It is often said that reading is a gift, but to my mind that is an insufficient description, for the size of the gift of reading is so vast that it is difficult to see what is outside its wrapping.
It turns out she is Canadian, my editor, and so she drinks like a fish. So she wasn't a lightweight at all. And in the morning, she said that the idea still seemed like a good one, and here we are.
When you say, "History is written by the winners," you like to think about someone who isn't you. You want to think, "Oh, that's the juggernaut I'm standing against." But you're probably part of it.