Quotes from The Bad Beginning

“...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire. You might find it difficult to see anything but your own sadness, the way smoke can cover a landscape so that all anyone can see is black. You may find that if someone pours water all over you, you are damp and distracted, but not cured of your sadness, the way a fire department can douse a fire but never recover what has been burnt down.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“If you have ever lost a loved one, then you know exactly how it feels. And if you have not, then you cannot possibly imagine it.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it is happening.

If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“But one type of book that practically no one likes to read is a book about the law. Books about the law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is an incentive - the word "incentive" here means "an offered reward to persuade you to do something you don't want to do - to read long, dull, and difficult books.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“The worst surroundings in the world can be tolerated if the people in them are interesting and kind.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“The smell of cooking food is often a calming one.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong. You can look at a painting for the first time, for example, and not like it at all, but after looking at it a little longer you may find it very pleasing. The first time you try Gorgonzola cheese you may find it too strong, but when you are older you may want to eat nothing but Gorgonzola cheese. Klaus, when Sunny was born, did not like her at all, but by the time she was six weeks old the two of them were thick as thieves. Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“You can invent things like automatic popcorn poppers. You can invent things like steam-powered window washers. But you can’t invent more time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“But the law is an odd thing. For instance, one country in Europe has a law that requires all its bakers to sell bread at the exact same price. A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. And a town not too far from where you live has a law that bars me from coming within five miles of its borders.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“Hay muchos, muchos tipos de libros en el mundo, lo cual tiene sentido porque hay muchas, muchas clases de personas y todas quieren leer algo diferente.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“One of the most troublesome things in life is that what you do or do not want has very little to do with what does or does not happen.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“In the time since the Baudelaire parents' death, most of the Baudelaire orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside, an expression wich here means "they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of the Baudelaires, making them lonely". You and I, of course, would never do this to any of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“This story is about the Baudelaires. And they are the sort of people who know that there’s always something. Something to invent, something to read, something to bite, and something to do, to make a sanctuary, no matter how small. And for this reason, I am happy to say, the Baudelaires were very fortunate indeed.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“Así pues, a menos que hayáis sido muy, muy afortunados, sabréis que una buena y larga sesión de llanto a menudo puede haceros sentir mejor, aunque vuestras circunstancias no hayan cambiado lo más mínimo.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

“I am certain that over the course of your own life, you have noticed that people's rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Bad Beginning

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“School went exactly as Violet thought it would: weird. It wasn’t her best, and it wasn’t her worst, day ever. It was just weird.
Jay was true to his word, deciding not to hold anything back. And it started the second they got out of the car, when he claimed her hand and refused to let go, even when Violet tugged and pulled to try to get it away from him. He ignored her mute protests and held on tight, smiling more to himself than to her, and paraded her right into the school like that.
Not that they’d never held hands before, because they had. But this was entirely different, and Jay was hell-bent on making sure that everyone knew it. And just in case anyone wondered what the hand-holding actually meant, he made sure to clear things up for them by planting a big, albeit very satisfying, kiss on her lips, right in the middle of the hallway. Violet didn’t try to pull away from that; in fact, she was dismayed to find herself leaning into him, craving more, and not caring—at least at that moment—who might see them together.
Unfortunately that person turned out to be Chelsea. Chelsea, of all people, along with Claire, who happened to walk up at very inopportune instant.
“Well, well, well,” Chelsea said in an oh-so-innocent voice. “Look what we have here, Claire-bear. It’s old Jay and Violet.” The unconcealed smile was embedded deep in her voice. “Only, and correct me if I’m wrong, this looks a little more than friendly, don’t you think?”
“I never kiss my friends like that,” Claire replied, blank-faced and serious, oblivious to sarcasm.
Jay’s answer was to pull Violet closer, wrapping his arm around her waist. Violet cringed.
Chelsea cocked her head at Claire. “I was just trying to make a point.”
Claire looked confused. “What point?”
“Seriously, Claire? That Violet and Jay are dating now.” She glanced away from poor confused Claire and flashed a gloating look to the couple in front of her. “It’s about time, by the way. I think everyone will thank you for putting us all out of our misery. I, for one, was completely fed up with watching you two lovesick puppies pining over each other. Seriously, it was disgusting.”
She grabbed Claire by the sleeve of her snug, body-hugging hoodie and led her down the hallway, toward their first-period class. Violet watched in stunned silence, processing everything that Chelsea had said to them, as Claire bounded along in Chelsea’s commanding wake.
Jay decided that it was his turn to gloat. “You pined for me?” he asked, stupid grin and all.
Violet hit him in the arm. “Shut up!” She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure she was talking about you anyway.”
― Kimberly Derting, quote from The Body Finder

“Can I view thee panting, lying
On thy stomach, without sighing;
Can I unmoved see thee dying
On a log
Expiring frog!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from The Pickwick Papers

“Other people his age had houses and washing machines, cars and television sets, furniture and gardens and mountain bikes and lawnmowers: he had four boxes of crap, and a set of matchless memories.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling

“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”
― George Eliot, quote from The Mill on the Floss

“Love always requires courage and involves risk.”
― M. Scott Peck, quote from The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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