“It is often one of life’s bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.”
— Lemony Snicket
“On of the world’s tiresome questions is what object one would bring to a desert island, because people always answer ‘a deck of cards’ or ‘Anna Karenina’ when the obvious answer is a well-equipped boat and a crew to sail me off the island and back home where I can play all the card games and read all the Russian novels I want.’”
— Lemony Snicket
“There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out in the world and find such a thing for yourself.”
— Lemony Snicket
“It has been said that the hardest job in the world is raising a child, but the people who say this have probably never worked at a comb factory or captured pirates on the high seas.”
— Lemony Snicket
“Wishing, like sipping a glass of punch, or pulling aside a bearskin rug in order to access a hidden trapdoor in the floor, is merely a quiet way to spend one’s time before the candles are extinguished on one’s birthday cake.”
— Lemony Snicket
“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don’t read is often as important as what you do read.”
— Lemony Snicket
“Entertaining a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or entertaining a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do. 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. But if you refuse to entertain a notion - which is just a fancy way of saying that you refuse to think about a certain idea - you have to be much braver than someone who is merely facing some bloodthirsty animals, or some parents who are upset to find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself.”
— Lemony Snicket
“There are some who say that you should forgive everyone, even the people who have disappointed you immeasurably. There are others who say you should not forgive anyone, and should stomp off in a huff no matter how many times they apologize. Of these two philosophies, the second one is of course much more fun, but it can also grow exhausting to stomp off in a huff every time someone has disappointed you, as everyone disappoints everyone eventually, and one can’t stomp off in a huff every minute of the day.”
— Lemony Snicket
“There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well worth staying up all night to finish.”
— Lemony Snicket
“Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter.”
— Lemony Snicket
