Poison for Breakfast

by Lemony Snicket

It is one of the mysteries of the world that you can change the landscape with your mind, that everything around you will move and shift just from the way you are imagining them.

I get sad, when I think of my own wicked acts, although I suppose if I weren’t sad about them it would mean I didn’t care. I’m glad that I care, so I’m a little happy that I’m sad.

it takes more effort to be a good person than a bad one,

some people are good at being lonely. I am one of them. I am a loneliness savant, a word which here means that loneliness comes naturally to me, so I am quite good at loneliness, if I do say so myself.

Life is like this, and literature, imaginary conversations and true stories mingling like languages in translation.

I understood that I knew nothing, that all the tiny things in my mind were just little tricks, as far from truth and wisdom as vinegar is from the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

It is one of the mysteries of the world that you can change the landscape with your mind, that everything around you can move and shift just from the way you are imagining it.

We must try, all of us, a lot of the time, our best, and we must keep trying. We do not understand anything but we should try our best to understand each other.

The man saw me, and I saw him see me. I did not know where he was going, and he did not know why I was crying. He did not keep hurrying, which would have embarrassed me, and he did not give me a big hug and tell me everything was going to be all right, which would have made me cry harder. He stopped and sat next to me and did not speak a word. He did not say anything at all, and I could not tell you why it was the most perfect thing to do. It was a terrible time for me, but it was, perhaps, his finest hour.