849 Quotes by Lemony Snicket

It takes years for the land to recuperate from a fire, but even in the darkest of ashes eventually something can grow.

I confess that if I were in Violet’s place, with only a few minutes to open a locked suitcase, instead of on the deck of my friend Bela’s yacht, writing this down, I probably would have given up hope. I would have sunk to the floor of the bedroom and pounded my fists against the carpet wondering why in the world life was so unfair and filled with inconveniences.

Beef. Yes. Roast beef. It’s the Swedish term for beef that is roasted.

Count Olaf has been captured,” she.

There’s no way to tell what will make someone break down in tears. There are some who will cry at the merest melancholy word, and there are some who need the longest, cruelest speech to even dampen one eyelash. There are those who will cry at any sad song but no sad book, and there are those who are immune to the most saddening newspaper articles but will weep for days over a terrible meal. People cry at silence or at violence, in a graveyard or a schoolyard.

Villainy, I thought to myself, despite all the myths and fairy tales, despite all the stories in books and all the articles in newspapers, is not very mysterious at all. It is a person in a room.

There are some people who believe that home is where one hangs one’s hat, but these people tend to live in closets and on little pegs.

Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.

Sooner or later, everyone’s story has an unfortunate event or two – a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set. The only solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life.