“I'm sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what's on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on this inside would would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does.”

“It has been said that the hardest job in the world is raising a child, but the people who says this have probably never worked at a comb factory or captured pirates on the high seas.”

“Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Olaf said. Not with you around," Violet agreed.I'm no worse than anyone else," Count Olaf said.”

“Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you were in a restaurant and said out loud, "I can't wait to eat the veal marsala I ordered," and there were people around who knew that the veal marsala was poisoned and that you would die as soon as you took a bite, your situation would be one of dramatic irony.”

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

“I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person, but it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

“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.”