Quotes from Lemony Snicket

Everybody will die, of course, sooner or later. Circus performers will die, and clarinet experts will die, and you and I will die, and there might be a person who lives on your block, right now, who is not looking both ways before he crosses the street and who will die in just in a few seconds, all because of a bus. Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.

It is, as you know, very, very rude and usually unnecessary to use profanity.

One cannot spend forever sitting and solving the mysteries of one's history.

Some of the simplest things in like are the most difficult to imagine.

There is no point in delaying crying. Sadness is like having a vicious alligator around. You can ignore it for only so long before it begins devouring things and you have to pay attention.

It is always terrible to be told to go play with people one doesn't know...

Nobody knows anything at all. We have no idea what is happening. We are all bewildered. Someone may say that they understand something, to ourselves or to others, but they are wrong, or guessing, or making it up.

You should never stick something that you are allergic to into your mouth, especially if that thing is cats.

I have a long list of things I'd rather not do.

They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.

The trouble with being patient is that eventually you get tired of it.

What should we call him?" Klaus asked. "You should call him Dr. Montgomery," Mr. Poe replied, "unless he tells you to call him Montgomery. Both his first and last names are Montgomery, so it doesn't make much difference." "His name is Montgomery Montgomery?" Klaus said, smiling. "Yes, and I'm sure he's very sensitive about that, so don't ridicule him," Mr. Poe said, coughing again into his handkerchief.

Hungry people should be fed. It takes some people a long time to figure this out.

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other books. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.

Get scared later, and if you're scared now remember what Kit always said. If you're not scared, she told me, it's not bravery. And you want to be brave, don't you, Snicket?

You can't believe everything you read.

Sometimes, even the best of plans will occur to you when it is too late.

I thought the war was a simple matter, with one side good and the other evil. But the more I read, the less clear it was.

They can teach you anything. That doesn't mean you learn it. It doesn't mean you believe it.

That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.

We represent the true human condition, the one permanent victory over cruelty and chaos. . . . Our true home is the imagination, and our kingdom is the wide-open world.

Hoping for the best, like hoping for a bat to obey your orders, almost always leads to disappointment.

For Beatrice- I would much prefer it if you were alive and well.