Lemony Snicket

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."

"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."

"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."

"Taking one’s chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck."

"No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read."

"I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies."

"Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too."

"All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk."

"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."

"One of the greatest myths in the world - & the phrase 'greatest myths' is just a fancy way of saying 'big fat lies' -- is that troublesome things get less & less troublesome if you do them more & more. People say this myth when they are teaching children to ride bicycles, for instance, as though falling off a bicycle & skinning your knee is less troublesome the fourteenth time you do it than it is the first time. The truth is that troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, & that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent."

"Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women."

"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."

"A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead."

"They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so."

"One of the world's most popular entertainments is a deck of cards, which contains thirteen each of four suits, highlighted by kings, queens and jacks, who are possibly the queen's younger, more attractive boyfriends."

"But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible...."

"The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding--which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together--blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author . . . "

"It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing."

"There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself."

"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."

What I Believe In (Holiday Edition)

[Real quick: I actually wrote this down a while ago. Last Christmas, to be specific. I wrote it for Craigslist, as I had recently been posting lists of what I believe in, and encouraging others to share the same. I wrote it on the blog I had then, and I found it when looking through to see if there were any files I wanted to transfer. This turned out to be the only one. Enjoy.]

What I Believe In (Holiday Edition)

Building half ass snowmen.
Thinking about food nonstop.
Cookies.
Warm bread.
Corned beef and cabbage.
Roast with carrots and potatoes.
Turkey.
Turkey noodle soup, with the egg noodles.
Hot tea.
Hot chocolate.
Hot apple cider.
Martinellis sparkling cider.
Tamales.
Stuffing.
Having an excuse to be kind.
Looking at Christmas lights.
Driving around aimlessly.
Christmas specials.
Claymation.
Christmas music.
Carol Of The Bells.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Bing Crosby.
Nat King Cole.
Porcelain Santas.
Decorating the day after Thanksgiving.
Family.
Cold fingers and even colder noses.
Sweaters.
Turkey Bucks.*
Christmas open houses.
Saying Merry Christmas even if you're Muslim.
Saying Happy Hannukah even if you're Christian.
White elephants.
Jesus Christ, maybe not as MY savior, but definitely someone's.
Appreciation of religions.
Santa Clauses with bells and red metal buckets.
Feeding the dogs the fat off my roast beef.
Breakast for the dogs.**
Stupid socks you would normally never show anybody.
Ornate nativities.
The overwhelming smell of vanilla and cinnamon.
Sales.
Snow.
The impressive display of deep crimsons, glittering golds, and greens so foresty you can almost smell the pine.
The smell of pine.
Choosing the perfect present for everybody.S
tockings, even for the animals.
Paper chains.
Being toasty warm when everything around you is so bitterly cold.
Baking cookies with friends.
Kisses under mistletoe.
Kisses not under mistletoe.
Being unabashadly happy to be alive at least once a year.

*Don't know if other stores did that, but Lin's Marketplace where I worked and shopped at in my home town of Moapa Valley gave you a 50 cent Turkey Buck for every so much you spent, and then when you bought your Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey, you put your Turkey Bucks toward it.
**Oatmeal, honey, peanut butter, milk, and a couple of raw eggs.

Things Every Person Should Do Before They Kick The Bucket.

• Own a pet.
• Volunteer.
• Sell a product.
• Steal something.
• Break the rules.
• Read a book.
• Learn to ask for the alcohol of your choice in another language, and then
• Visit a country where you can exercise such knowledge.
• Watch a meteor shower.
• Start a blog.