Quotes from Lemony Snicket

They spent the rest of the afternoon trudging back up the hill carrying their groceries, but the heaviness of cucumbers and limes was nothing compared to the heaviness in the orphans' hearts.

As he has promised, no harm has come to the Baudelaire orphans in the Reptile Room, but great harm had come to Uncle Monty.

The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen. An aphorism is merely a small group of words arranged in a certain order because they sound good that way, but oftentimes people ten to say them as if they were saying something very mysterious and wise.

She was stronger than Stew Mitchum, or maybe she just wanted something more than he did.

Overall, the shack was too miserable to serve as a storage space for old banana peels, let alone as a home for three young people, and I confess that if I had been told that it was my home I probably would have lain on the bales of hay and thrown a temper tantrum.

Whether you have been sent to see the principle of your school for throwing wet paper towels at the ceiling to see if they stick or taken to the dentist to plead with him to hollow out one of your teeth so you can smuggle a single page of your latest book past the guards at the airport, it is never a pleasant feeling to stand outside the door of an office....

And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do.

Count Olaf was so obsessed with getting his filthy hands on the money that he hatched a devious plan that gives me nightmares to this day.

I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them.

It doesn't matter if you look ridiculous, not if you are with people you know and trust. If you are with people you know and trust and

But that's another error in the note," Klaus said. "It doesn't say un bearable, with a U. It says in bearable, with an I." " You are being unbearable, with a U," Violet cried. "And you are being stupid, with an S," Klaus snapped.

I had a list of ways I would prefer to die. Drowning was toward the bottom of the list. My top choice was "never.

The expression "following suit" is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing.

Time after time he[Count Olaf] had come very close to succeeding, and time after time the Baudelaire orphans had revealed his plan, and time after time he had escaped-and all Mr. Poe had ever done was cough.

A wonderful laugh is no excuse for villainous behavior!

It's bitten her!' he cried. 'It's Bitten her! It's bitten her! Calm down! Get moving! Call an ambulance! Call the police! Call a scientist! Call my wife! This is terrible! This is awful! This is ghastly! This is phantasmagorical! This is-

There is nothing wicked about having a dreadful singing voice, any more than there is something wicked about having dreadful posture, dreadful cousins, or a dreadful pair of pants. Many noble and pleasant people have any number of these things, and there are even one or two kind individuals who have them all. But if you have something dreadful, and you force it upon someone else, then you have done something quite wicked indeed.

It was confusing pretending to be completely different people, particularly because it had been so long since the Baudelaires were able to be the people they really were. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not think of themselves as the sort of children who hid in the trunks of automobiles, or who wore disguises, or who tried to get jobs at the House of Freaks.

Showing up early is one of the signs of a noble person....

Mr. Poe couldn't think of anything else to say that might have comforted the Baudelaire orphans, but I wish now that I had the power to go back in time and speak to these three sobbing children.

If you are going to hear the work of the world's greatest composers, you will have to allow for a little murder here and there. […] Those who want justice can go to the police, but those who want something a little more interesting should go to the orchestra!

Your initial opinion on just about anything will change over time.

People who think nothing could go wrong are usually disappointed.

It is one of the strange truths of life that practically nobody likes to be stared at and that practically nobody can stop themselves from staring....