You can’t force yourself to trust. So you put all your doubts in a little box and bury it deep and then try to forget where you buried it

Why did they come billions of miles just to stare at us? It's rude.

But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.

Even the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive thing. Cruelty isn’t a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.

You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you.

Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky.

So often the monsters that crowd our minds are nothing more than the strange and thoroughly alien progeny of our own fearful fantasies.

You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.

You can only call someone crazy if there’s someone else who’s normal. Like good and evil. If everything was good, then nothing would be good.

It's almost dawn. You can feel it coming. The world holds its breath, because there's really no guarantee that the sun will rise. That there was a yesterday doesn't mean there will be a tomorrow.

It's hard to plan for what comes next when what comes next is not something you planned for.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

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.

A quick example of that is a woman who said she'd been healed of throat cancer where the faith healer admitted he touched her on the forehead.

I think a snob would be a person who thinks he is entitled; he has good things in his life and is entitled to them.

It is necessary to be strong, in order to become great: that is our duty. Life is a struggle, which we cannot avoid. We must triumph!

Those who do not know must be taught, not punished. We do not hit the blind. We lead them by the hand.

The man who while he gives thinks of what he will get in return, deserves to be deceived.

Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?

One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned at the stake while the votes were being counted.

The Framers [of the Constitution] . . . created the federally protected right of silence and decreed that the law could not be used to pry open one's lips and make him a witness against himself.