Quotes from Lemony Snicket

A very long time ago, my brother and I played a game each morning while we waited for the school bus to arrive. We called the game Beethoven, and my sister refused to play because she thought it was inane. "Inane" is a word which here means that my brother and I would pretend we couldn't hear each other very well while we were talking.

Some book of mine - this book of philosophy, for example - may sit ignored and lonely on a high shelf, but then someday a reader will walk into a library and spot the spine of the book they have been waiting for, and they will pluck my book off the shelf and use it to stand on, to reach the book they are excited to read.

The moral of World War I is 'Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

No, no,' Phil Said. 'It's fine. I've never liked my left leg so much, anyways.

If Uncle Monty had known known what bad luck was soon to come, he wouldn't have wasted a moment thinking about Gustav. I wish - and I'm sure you wish as well - we could go back in time and warn him, but we can't, and that's that.

I am often very lonely up on this hill by myself, and when Mr. Poe wrote to me about your troubles I didn't want you to be as lonely as I was when I lost my dear Ike.

Are you saying that being a criminal is a matter of opinion?" I asked. Qwerty smiled, but it was sad around the edges. "No," he said. "It's a matter of handcuffs.

In some stories, it's easy. The moral of "The Three Bears," for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house." The moral of "Snow White" is "Never eat apples." The moral of World War One is "Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things.

I was in my favorite seat in the library, but it wasn't helping me like the book any better. It was a book people kept putting in my hands and telling me I was going to love, the way the doctor tells you the needle won't hurt a bit. The book began the way it always began before I gave up on it: with a man carrying around a drawing or a snake that had just eaten, and asking people what they thought of it. I thought it was no way to start up a conversation.

For one thing, the penthouse was simply too big. Besides the seventy-one bedrooms, there were a number of living rooms, dining rooms, breakfast rooms, snack rooms, sitting rooms, standing rooms, ballrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and an assortment of rooms that seem to have no purpose at all.

He was wrong in thinking that by saying 'Nnphnn!' Sunny had been complaining about getting undressed in front of her siblings. Sunny's oversized suit had muffled the word she was really saying, and it was a word that still haunts me in my dreams as I toss and turn each night, images of Beatrice and her legacy filling my weary, grieving brain no matter where in the world I travel and no matter what important evidence I discover.

The book did not say anything about a statue, valuable or otherwise, and so I stopped reading about the Bombinating Beast and got interested in the chapter about the Stain'd witches, who had ink instead of blood in their veins. I wondered what they kept in their pens.

The moral of "The Three Bears," for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house." The moral of "Snow White" is "Never eat apples." The moral of World War One is "Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

It is not enough in this world to be kindhearted, particularly if you are responsible for keeping children out of danger.

In every other place on Earth, nobility and integrity are vanishing quickly.

Every problem has a solution,' the doorman said. 'At least, that's what a close associate of mine says. Sometimes it just takes a long time to find the solution - even if it's right in front of your nose.

Remember, sometimes something might seem like bad news, but it could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

The children nodded in agreement, and rose from the table. Leaving their dirty breakfast dishes behind, which is not a good thing to do in general but perfectly acceptable in the face of an emergency.

One of the greatest myths in the world - and the phrase 'greatest myths is just a fancy way of saying 'big fat lies' - is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more.

A cheerful attitude is the most effect tool against sickness.

As I'm sure you know, to be in one's own room, in one's own bed, can often make a bleak situation a little better

When someone is in disguise, and the disguise is not very good, one can describe it as a transparent disguise. This does not mean that the person is wearing plastic wrap or glass or anything else transparent. It merely means that people can see through his disguise - that is, the disguise doesn't fool them for a minute.

Tadu,' Sunny murmured solemnly, which probably meant something along the lines of 'it's a loathsome situation in which we find ourselves.