Lemony Snicket

“The phrase "in the dark," as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.”

“What do your parents know, about surviving? ”

“It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.”

“Tell me what it is, or prepare to eat harpoon.”

“One of the world's most tiresome questions is what object one would bring to a desert island,because people always answer "a deck of cards" or "Anna Karenina" when the obvious answer is "a well equipped boat and a crew to sail me off the island and back home where I can play all the card games and read all the Russian novels I want.”

“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 . . .”

“The central theme of Anna Karenina," he said, "is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy.""That is a very long theme," the scout said. "It's a very long book," Klaus replied.[...]"Or maybe a daring life of impulsive passion leads to something else," the scout said, and in some cases this mysterious person was right. A daring life of impulsive passion is an expression which refers to people who follow what is in their hearts, and like people who prefer to follow their head, or follow a mysterious man in a dark blue raincoat, people who lead a daring life of impulsive passion end up doing all sorts of things.”

“And a refrigerator may hold a basket of strawberries, which would be important if a maniac said to you, "If you don't give me a basket of strawberries right now, I'm going to poke you with this large stick." But when the two elder Baudelaires and Quigley Quagmire opened the refrigerator, they found nothing that would help someone who was wounded, dying of thirst, or being threatened by a strawberry-crazed, stick-carrying maniac.”

“Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do, it makes you want to hide under the coffee table.”

“There is no worse sound in the world than someone who cannot play the violin but insists on doing so anyway.”

“Is it useful to feel fear, because it prepares you for nasty events, or is it useless, because nasty events will occur whether you are frightened or not?”

“When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”

“Wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one's time before the candles are extinguished on one's birthday cake.”

“Beef. Yes. Roast beef. It's the Swedish term for beef that is roasted.”

“Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.”

“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.' [...]”

“The hallway was lined with numbered doors, odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other, and large ornamental vases, too large to hold flowers and too small to hold spies.”

“Of course, it is boring to read about boring thing, but it is better to read something that makes you yawn with boredom than something that will make you weep uncontrollably, pound your fists against the floor, and leave tearstains all over your pillowcase, sheets, and boomerang collection.”

“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.”

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

“Get out of my way, you cakesniffers!” said a rude, violent, and filthy little girl, shoving the Baudelaire orphans aside as she dashed by.”

“The only thing he cares about.”

“The end of THE END is the best place to begin THE END, because if you read THE END from the beginning of the beginning of THE END to the end of the end of THE END, you will arrive at the end.”

“One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”

“Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.”

“The world is quiet here.”

“Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.”

“There is nothing particularly wrong with salmon, of course, but like caramel candy, strawberry yogurt, or liquid carpet cleaner, if you eat too much of it you are not going to enjoy your meal.”

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

“They're book addicts.”

“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.”

“It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is really wrong is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right.”

“Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course.”

“If you are trying to fool a farsighted or dimwitted person, a veiled facial disguise might be enough.”

“Criminals should be punished, not fed pastries.”

“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.”

“You would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.”

“Even though there are no ways of knowing for sure, there are ways of knowing for pretty sure.”

“Oftentimes. when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.”

“Like a church bell, a coffin, and a vat of melted chocolate, a supply closet is rarely a comfortable place to hide.”

“Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.”

“To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left.”

“Whenever you are examining someone else's belongings, you are bound to learn many interesting things about the person of which you were not previously aware.”

“It is terribly rude to tell people that their troubles are boring.”

“The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.”

“People don't always get what they deserve in this world.”

“A new experience can be extremely pleasurable, or extremely irritating, or somewhere in between, and you never know until you try it out.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures" is an aphorism which here means "sometimes you need to change your facial expression in order to create a workable disguise." The quoting of an aphorism, such as "It takes a village to raise a child," "No news is good news," and "Love conquers all," rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen, which is why we provide our volunteers with a disguise kit in addition to helpful phrases of advice.”

“I know what is going on," said Sir. "I am the Boss! Of course I know!”

“You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.”