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.

At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them

The world is swirling with so many mysteries and secrets that nobody will ever track down all of them. But with a book you can stay up very late, reading until all the secrets are clear to you. The questions of the world are hidden forever, but the answers in a book are hiding in plain sight.

Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.

Tea should be as bitter as wormwod and as sharp as a two eged swordKit Snicket (a series of unfortunate events)

Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.

Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.

The map is not the territory," Snicket's chaperon advises him. "That's an expression which means the world does not match the picture in our heads.

You don't spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two.