“...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
Lemony Snicket
Born place: in San Francisco, The United States
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“Dad is looking at the bookshelves, deep in thought, deciding which book should go where. Once, Mom came home from work and discovered that he had turned all the books around so that the bindings were against the wall and the pages faced out. He said it was calming not to have all those words floating around and "creating static." Mom made him turn them back. She said it was too hard to find a book when she couldn't read the titles. Then she poured herself a big glass of wine.”
― Rebecca Stead, quote from Liar & Spy
“If you plan to be an artist you need to learn how to take criticism and stand up for your work. If you don't love it, no one will.”
― Jen Frederick, quote from Undeclared
“Believe this, young man," exclaimed Shelgrim, layinga thick powerful forefinger on the table to emphasize his words, "try to believe this - to begin with - that railroads build themselves. Where there is a demand sooner or later there will be a supply. Mr. Derrick, does he grow his wheat? The Wheat grows itself. What does he count for? Does he supply the force? What do I count for? Do I build the Railroad? You are dealing with forces, young man, when you speak of Wheat and the Railroads, not with men. There is the Wheat, the supply. It must be carried to feed the People. There is the demand. The Wheat is one force, the Railroad, another, and there is the law that governs them - supply and demand. Men have only little to do in the whole business. Complications may arise, conditions that bear hard on the individual - crush him maybe - but the Wheat will be carried to feed the people as inevitably as it will grow. If you want to fasten the blame of the affair at Los Muertos on any one person, you will make a mistake. Blame conditions, not men.”
― Frank Norris, quote from The Octopus: A Story of California
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quote from El Principito, El Príncipe feliz y otros cuentos
“I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.”
― Patricia Highsmith, quote from The Price of Salt
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