“Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.”

“I’m reminded of a book my father used to read me,” she said. “A bunch of elves and things get into a huge war over a piece of jewelry that everybody wants but nobody can wear.”

“There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.”

“In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”

“People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.”

“If you are interested in happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters.”

“13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.”