Hope

“I can compare the pencil I am using to write these words (and these words, and these and these) to my own life, because it is sometimes sharp and sometimes dull, and because it is getting shorter and shorter the more I use it, and because even when I try to erase things you can still see the marks they left behind.”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast

“1.​Don’t think about your dirty dishes as ghosts, I told myself. 2.​Or how the chair looks lonely without you in it, Snicket—a wooden outline of someone sitting. 3.​Grab a pen and a few scraps of paper, so you can take notes on your investigation. 4.​In fact, perhaps you’ve already taken a note or two, while you were thinking about all those other things. 5.​And bring the book you were reading at breakfast. 6.​Remember what you learned, years ago: You’re never sorry you brought a book. 7.​Besides, it’s a small book. Look, it fits easily in the pocket of your coat. 8.​It’s why you like that coat so much, because books fit in its pockets, 9.​So you can take books with you on all your journeys. 10.​Leave now. 11.​Don’t think about journeys,”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast

“Perhaps the person holding the camera just caught me at a moment where I was not displaying my happiness, or perhaps I did not quite know I was happy. You do not always know you are happy when you are happy. Sometimes you can’t really tell when you are happy until it is over and you are thinking about it later.”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast

“There were, he said contemptuously (...) only two stories, really:

A stranger comes to town

and

Someone goes on a journey.

(...) A woman (...) murmered a secret to me:
"Those are the same story.”
― Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast