Quotes from Lemony Snicket

This feeling is not unlike the sinking in one's stomach when one is in an elevator that suddenly goes down, or when you are snug in your bed and your closet door suddenly creaks open to reveal the person who has been hiding there.

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, and that is never pleasant to think about, however true it might be.

And for a minute the four castaways did nothing but weep, letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all the tears in history.

Or why you are wearing a picture of Santa Clause on you shirts, but-" "It's Herman Melville.

If everyone fought fire with fire, the entire world would go up in smoke.

Is it fair for the bears to come down to where humans live, looking for food? Is it fair for the Duke's soldiers to shoot at them? Is it fair for the bears to crush them with giant snowballs? Often, if you point out something that isn't fair, someone will reply, "Life isn't fair." What is to be done with such people?

The only thing he cares about.

But sometimes it takes only a photograph and a sentence to make an author cry himself to sleep even years after the photograph was taken.

There is a pair of snakes who have learned to drive a car so recklessly that they would run you over in the street and never stop to apologize.

They were probably hitting the town. I hoped it was hitting them back.

I guess we'll be traveling in uncharted waters." "That'll be fun," Phil said.

Josephine caught my eye and gave me a signal we'd used for years to indicate that one of us had to leave. The signal was mouthing the words "I have to leave" and pointing at the door.

This knowledge sits in my heart, heavy as a paperweight.

Countless writers express countless ideas on so many bits of paper, and at some unknown moment some specific book, even some specific sentence, will be the right one for the right person. We never know when some scrap of literature will have its finest hour.

There are many reasons, of course, why someone might snap their fingers and grin. If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingers and grin to demonstrate that the music had charms that could soothe your savage breast. If you were employed as a spy, you might snap your fingers and grin in order to deliver a message in secret snapping-and-grinning code.

A proper library has at least one fantastic librarian, preferably more than one, so if the fantastic librarian goes out to lunch or falls into a tar pit, there will be a spare.

It is unwise to make something permanent when the whole world is shifting. There may be a time when this symbol means something treacherous and terrible, rather than something noble and literate.

Count Olaf sounds like an awful person. I hope he is torn apart by wild animals someday. Wouldn't that be satisfying?

no matter how much one reads, the whole story can never be told.

If only Uncle Monty knew what we know," Violet said, "and Stephano knew that he knew what we know. But Uncle Monty doesn't know what we know, and Stephano knows that he doesn't know what we know." "I know," Klause said. "I know you know," Violet said

Never mind what my name is," the man said. "No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.

If you have ever slept in a covered casserole dish on the highest peak of a mountain range, then you know that it is an uncomfortable place to lay one's head, even if you find a dish towel inside it that can serve as a blanket.

But your imaginings would be ersatz, as all imaginings are.

It is hard for decent people to stay angry at someone who has burst into tears, which is why it is often a good idea to burst into tears if a decent person is yelling at you.