Lemony Snicket · 324 pages
Rating: (12.7K votes)
“If you like books with happy endings then put this book down immediately.”
“Deciding on the right thing to do in a situation is a bit like deciding on the right thing to wear to a party. It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier. It might seem right to wear a navy blue suit, for instance, but when you arrive there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being handcuffed due to a case of mistaken identity. It might seem right to wear your favorite pair of shoes, but there could be a sudden flood at the party, and your shoes would be ruined. And it might seem right to wear a suit of armor to the party, but there could be several other people wearing the same thing, and you could end up being caught in a flood due to a case of mistaken identity, and find yourself drifting out to sea wishing that you were wearing deep-sea diving equipment after all. The truth is that you can never be sure if you have decided on the right thing until the party is over, and by then it is too late to go back and change your mind, which is why the world is filled with people doing terrible things and wearing ugly clothing, and so few volunteers who are able to stop them.”
“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”
“Just because something is typed—whether it is typed on a business card or typed in a newspaper or book—this does not mean that it is true.”
“A letter may be coded, and a word may be coded. A theatrical performance may be coded, and a sonnet may be coded, and there are times when it seems the entire world is in code. Some believe that the world can be decoded by performing research in a library. Others believe that the world can be decoded by reading a newspaper.”
“For sapphires we are held in here. Only you can end our fear.” Violet said. “Until dawn comes we cannot speak. No words can come from this sad beak.”
“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”
“trivial as her hair. This morning she was thinking about how to construct”
“take either forty-eight or eighty-four pages to”
“white beans, cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil, all mixed together with lime juice, olive oil, and cayenne pepper,”
“Every man has his excuses, and the more vile the man becomes, the more touching the story has to be. What is my story now, I wonder?”
“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”
“Okay, gang," I said, "according to blueprints, there's an elevator access panel on the east side of the building. We may get a little dirty, but—"
"I thought we'd just go through the doors," Liz said, flashing three beautifully engraved invitations and some wonderfully authentic fake IDs.
The tickets were $20,000 each. The Secret Service had been vetting the guest list for weeks, so Bex and I stopped beneath a streetlamp and studied Liz.
"Do I even want to know where you got those?" I asked.
Liz seemed to ponder it, and then she said, "No.”
“Now there is nothing in this world I abominate worse, than to be interrupted in a story...”
“...intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over...”
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