“It is not very polite to interrupt a person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can hardly stop yourself.”

“It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself.”

“Normally it is not polite to go into somebody’s room without knocking, but you can make an exception if the person is dead, or pretending to be 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.”

“Having a personal philosophy is like having a pet marmoset, because it may be very attractive when you acquire it, but there may be situations when it will not come in handy at all.”

“In the time since the Baudelaire parents' death, most of the Baudelaire orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside, an expression wich here means "they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of the Baudelaires, making them lonely". You and I, of course, would never do this to any of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.”

“Unless you have been very, very lucky, you have undoubtedly experienced events in your life that have made you cry. So unless you have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.”