Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives...

…in life it is often the tiny details that end up being the most important.

If you have walked into a museum recently – whether you did so to attend an art exhibition or to escape from the police – you may have noticed a type of painting known as a triptych. A triptych has three panels, with something different painted on each of the panels. For instance, my friend...

Are you ready?” Klaus asked finally.”No,” Sunny answered.”Me neither,” Violet said, “but if we wait until we’re ready we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives, Let’s go.

You’re noble enough, Baudelaires. That’s all we can ask for in this world.

When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.

and she knows how to do all sorts of things.

This is my knife. It is very sharp and very eager to hurt you.

To hear the phrase “our only hope” always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn’t work, there is nothing left.

I’m not a stranger,” I said, and pointed to his book. “I’m someone who reads the same authors you do.

Sunny did not eat the wood, of course, but she chewed on it and pretended it was a carrot, or an apple, or a beef and cheese enchilada, all of which she loved.

In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words—or perhaps someone else’s—before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end.

pero es una triste realidad de la vida que, cuando alguien ha perdido a un ser querido, a veces los amigos le esquivan, justo en el momento en que su presencia es mucho más necesaria.

Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.

Those unable to catalog the past are doomed to repeat it.

My silence knot is tied up in my hair; as if to keep my love out of my eyes. I cannot speak to one for whom i care. A hatpin serves as part of my disguise. In the play, my role is baticeer; a word which here means “person who trains bats.” The audience may...

It’s hard when you’re missing your family. You wake up every morning like someone took one of your legs.

But some secrets are so strange and so dangerous that showing them to people makes the strangeness and the danger pour into their lives like a dark, dark ink.

It is very unnerving to be proven wrong, particularly when you are really right and the person who is really wrong is proving you wrong and proving himself, wrongly, right.

When somebody is a little bit wrong – say, when a waited puts nonfat milk in your espresso macchiato, instead of lowfat milk – it is often quite easy to explain to them how and why they are wrong. But if somebody is surprisingly wrong – say, when a waiter bites your nose instead of...

You would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.

For Beatrice, when we met, my life began. Soon afterwards, yours ended.

But like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

If one’s safety is threatened, one often finds courage one didn’t know one had, and the eldest Baudelaire found she could be brave enough to open the door.

Thinking about something is like picking up a stone when taking a walk, either while skipping rocks on the beach, for example, or looking for a way to shatter the glass doors of a museum. When you think about something, it adds a bit of weight to your walk, and as you think about more...

All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.

A long time ago, there was no such thing as school, and children spent their days learning a trade, a phrase which here means “standing around doing tedious tasks under the instruction of a bossy adult.” In time, however, people realized that the children could be allowed to sit, and the first school was invented.

For some stories, it’s easy. The moral of ‘The Three Bears,’ for instance, is “Never break into someone else’s house.’ The moral of ‘Snow White’ is ‘Never eat apples.’ The moral of World War I is ‘Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

I am heartbroken, but I have been heartbroken before, and this might be the best for which I can hope.

You cannot wait for an untroubled world to have an untroubled moment. The terrible phone call, the rainstorm, the sinister knock on the door—they will all come. Soon enough arrive the treacherous villain and the unfair trial and the smoke and the flames of the suspicious fires to burn everything away. In the meantime, it...

They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.

If you were upset about an ugly pimple on the end of your nose, you might try to feel better by keeping your pimple in perspective. You might compare your pimple situation to that of someone who was being eaten by a bear, and when you looked in the mirror at your ugly pimple, you...

Pero las leyes son un poco raras. Por ejemplo, un país de Asia tiene una ley que obliga a que todas las bicicletas tengan las ruedas del mismo tamaño. Una isla tiene una ley que prohíbe que nadie recoja la fruta. Y una ciudad no demasiado alejada de donde vivimos tiene una ley que me...

Sunny held Kit, and Violet held Klaus, and for a minute the four castaways did nothing but weep, letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all tears in history.

Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of “systematically assisting Sisyphus’s stealthy, cyst-susceptible sister,” which is easier done than said.

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...

As she worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and against when they brought Sunny home from the hospital. ‘you are the eldest Baudelaire child,’ they had said, kindly but firmly. ‘And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise...

Are you saying that being a criminal is a matter of opinion?” I asked.Qwerty smiled, but it was sad around the edges. “No,” he said. “It’s a matter of handcuffs.

This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.

The children nodded in agreement, and rose from the table. Leaving their dirty breakfast dishes behind, which is not a good thing to do in general but perfectly acceptable in the face of an emergency.

You cannot have a really terrific library without at least one terrific librarian, the way you cannot have a really terrific bedroom unless you can lock the door.

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...

Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.

It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try to readjust the way you thought of things.

If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean that you would be a midget if you were bald.

It is good to brush your teeth when you are angry, because you brush harder and do a better job.

It is one of life’s bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.

There’s nothing wrong with athletics, but they shouldn’t get in the way of your schoolwork.

They’re book addicts.