“It is true, of course, that there is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time. You might know someone for several years, for instance, and trust him completely as your friend, but circumstances could change and he could become very hungry, and before you knew it you could be boiling in a soup pot, because there is no way of knowing for sure.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Normally I don't approve of children staying up late,' he said finally, 'unless they are reading a very good book, seeing a wonderful movie, or attending a dinner party with fascinating guests.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“For Beatrice-
When we were together I felt breathless.
Now you are.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“It was a curious feeling, that something could be so close and so distant at the same time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“There is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Although 'jumping to conclusions' is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy. If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper, If you jump in front of moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit. 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. Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not jumping at all.
But it is hard not to jump at all when you are jumping to conclusions, and it is impossible to make sure that you are jumping to a safe place, because all 'jumping to conclusions' means is that you are believing something is true even though you don't actually know whether it is or not.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled 'How to Build a Chair' instead of a cookbook, you pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“In this large and fierce world of ours, there are many, many unpleasant places to be. You can be in a river swarming with angry electric eels, or in a supermarket filled with vicious long-distance runners. You can be in a hotel that has no room service, or you can be lost in a forest that is slowly filling up with water. You can be in a hornet's nest or in an abandoned airport or in the office of a pediatric surgeon, but one of the most unpleasant things that can happen is to find yourself in a quandary. Which is where the Baudelaire orphans found themselves that night. Finding yourself in a quandary means that everything seems confusing and dangerous and you don't know what in the world to do about it, and it is one of the worst unpleasantries you can encounter.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“A huge cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at. Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes. Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has shown, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty-fifth in a beauty pageant. Nevertheless, as the Baudelaire orphans stumbled around the cell, dropped each half of the battering ram and listening to the sound of crows flying in circles outside, they stared at the huge cloud of dust as if it were a thing of great beauty.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Nevermore Tree was gargantuan, a word which here means 'having attained an inordinate amount of botanical volume.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“I myself fell in love with a wonderful women who was so charming and intelligent that I trusted that she would be my bride, but there was no way of knowing for sure, and all too soon circumstances changed and she ended up marrying someone else, all because of something she read in The Daily Punctilio.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Inside these letters, the eye will see
Nearby are your friends, and VFD.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“The expression 'a bold from the blue' describes something so surprising that i makes you head spin, your legs wobble, and your body buzz with astonishment - as if a bold of lightening suddenly came down from a clear blue sky and struck you at full force. Unless you are a lightbulb, an electrical appliance, or a tree that is tired of standing upright, encountering a bold from the blue is not a pleasant experience.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“After even the first few steps, the disadvantages of the bus ride seemed like small potatoes. 'Small potatoes' is a phrase which has nothing to do with root vegetables that happen to be tiny in size. Instead, it refers to the change in one's feelings for something when it is compared with something else. If you were walking in the rain, for instance, you might be worried about getting wet, but if you turned the corner and saw a pack of vicious dogs, getting wet would suddenly become small potatoes next to getting chased down an alley and barked at, or possibly eaten.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“When one's stomach is as fluttery as all that, it is nice to take a short break to lie down and perhaps sip a fizzy beverage, but there was no time for such things.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Depressed" is a word that often describes somebody who is feeling sad and gloomy, but in this case it describes a secret button, hidden in a crow statue, that is feeling just fine, thank you.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Why does anyone have a lot of rules? So they can boss people around, I guess.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“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.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“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.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“It is true, of course, that there is no way of knowing for sure whether or not you can trust someone, for the simple reason that circumstances change all of the time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“...Nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself, particularly if the idea comes from a sinister villain.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“It certainly was,” Klaus agreed, not adding that he had known the word “superlative” since he was eleven. “I see that just about every evening,” Hector said, “and it always impresses me. It always makes me hungry,”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“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 tend to say them as if they were saying something very mysterious and wise.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“There are many expressions to describe someone who is going about something in the wrong way. “Making a mistake” is one way to describe this situation. “Screwing up” is another, although it is a bit rude, and “Attempting to rescue Lemony Snicket by writing letters to a congressman, instead of digging an escape tunnel” is a third way, although it is a bit too specific.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“panic. “Vireo!” Sunny cried, which meant “Let’s run—or, in my case, crawl—as fast as we can!” “We’ll never run fast”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Count Olaf has been captured,” she”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“Grinning is something you do when you are entertained in some way, such as reading a good book or watching someone you don’t care for spill orange soda all over himself.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“We're not out of the woods yet.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
“The Baudelaire orphans stared at the scrap of paper, and then at Hector, and then at the scrap of paper again. Then they stared at Hector again, and then at the scrap of paper once more and then at Hector once more and then at the scrap of paper once again, and then at Hector once again and then at the scrap of paper one more time.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Vile Village
Lemony Snicket
Born place: in San Francisco, The United States
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“You’re really not fit to be allowed out on your own, are you?’ ‘So, what’s the damage?’ ‘How do you want it? From head to toe? Alphabetically? Chronologically?’ ‘Surprise me.’ ‘Well, your feet are holding up well.’ ‘Glad to hear it. I’ll be on my way then.”
― Jodi Taylor, quote from Just One Damned Thing After Another
“You look good scruffy."
"Now that I know you think that, I'll never shave again."
She laughed again. "Remind me to look you up in two years to see how long your beard is."
"All you'll have to do is roll over in our bed to see that.”
― Bella Andre, quote from Kissing Under the Mistletoe
“Parenthetically, in the West’s current war against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, it would be good for the leaders to remember this “Islamic tactic of warfare.” According to this “religious” doctrine of Islam, what Muslims say does not have to be true— after all, to them, “War is deception.” And the end justifies the means.”
― quote from The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad
“Are you in love with him?”
I rolled my head on the plank to look at Wesley.
“I don’t think I know what being in love is yet. But this is different than anything I’ve ever felt.”
“What’s it feel like?”
“Remember when you thought I was jumping off to kill myself?”
He winced.
“It’s like that,” I said.
“But no one catches you. You’re just hanging over infinity.”
― Leah Raeder, quote from Unteachable
“He gave no reason, but in families such as ours, when it comes to shame, it's possible to gauge with exquisite precision its depth and degree by the surrounding silence. In Sueyin's case, the silence was absolute, her disgrace unredeemable.”
― Janie Chang, quote from Three Souls
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DeathlessBookQuoters 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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