Everyone Tells You It's All Right To

I'd Finished The First Two [books] And They Were Going To To Be Published, And [editor] Said, "we Need You To Write A Summary That Will Drive People To These Books." And It Took Forever. I Couldn't Think Of A Thing To Say. I Looked At The Back Of Other Children's Books That Were Full Of Giddy Praise And Corny Rhetorical Questions, You Know, "will She Have A Better Time At Summer Camp Than She Thinks?" "how Will She Escape From The Troll's Dungeon?" All These Terrible, Terrible Summaries Of Books, And I Just Couldn't.

There Is No Worse Sound In The World Than Someone Who Cannot Play The Violin But Insists On Doing So Anyway.

There Are Two Kinds Of Fears: Rational And Irrational- Or In Simpler Terms, Fears That Make Sense And Fears That Don't.

As I Am Sure You Know, When People Say 'it's My Pleasure,' They Usually Mean Something Along The Lines Of, 'there's Nothing On Earth I Would Rather Do Less.' [...]

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.