It was another thing you didn’t learn at a top-drawer school. Bickering is like baldness or lousy gifts. It runs in families.

But even if they could go home it would be difficult for me to tell you what the moral of the story is. In some stories, it’s easy. The moral of ‘The Three Bears’, for...

People don’t always get what they deserve in this world.

Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you’d see.

Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about...

Is it useful to feel fear, because it prepares you for nasty events, or is it useless, because nasty events will occur whether you are frightened or not?

Hungry people should be fed. It takes some people a long time to figure this out.

The Baudelaire orphans hung on to one another, and wept and wept while the adults argued endlessly behind them. Finally-as, I’m sorry to say, Count Olaf forced the Quagmires into puppy costumes so he could...

Cualquiera que conociese a Violet se hubiera dado cuenta de que estaba pensando intensamente, porque llevaba la larga melena recogida con una cinta para que no se le metiera en los ojos. Violet tenía el...

If only Uncle Monty knew what we know,” Violet said, “and Stephano knew that he knew what we know. But Uncle Monty doesn’t know what we know, and Stephano knows that he doesn’t know what...

I suppose I’ll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies.

It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.

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 themselves.

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...

When you find the sort of people who will show up to give you a ride exactly when they’ve promised to do so, hold on to them for dear life.

That night was a dark day. Of course, all nights are dark days, because night is simply a badly lit version of day, …

A menos que hayáis sido muy, muy afortunados, habréis experimentado sucesos en vuestra vida que os habrán hecho llorar. Así pues, a menos que hayáis sido muy, muy afortunados, sabréis que una buena y larga...

For Beatrice, when we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty.Now I am pretty lonely.

One of the world’s most 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...

the table of elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise.

There are people like this wherever you go. They are part of the same mystery as you are, but you can’t quite tell how you fit together. The world is a puzzle, and we cannot...

I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves...

You write poetry?” Klaus asked.He had read a lot about poets but had never met one.”Just a little bit,” Isadora said modestly. “I write poems down in this notebook. It’s an interest of mine.””Sappho!” Sunny...

The difference between a house and a home is like the difference between a man and a woman– it might be embarrassing to explain, but it would be very unusual to get them confused.

Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. Some people say that a sunrise is a miracle, because...

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...

You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. That’s why the dark is always close by.

What do your parents know, about surviving?

Well, Nero,” Genghis said, “I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!””Oh, thank you,” Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis’s...

Seguro que sabéis que cuando uno está en su propia habitación, en su propia cama, una situación triste puede mejorar un poco

But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible….

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never...

All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Everyone tells you it’s all right to cry, but not enough people say it’s all right if you don’t want people to know.

There’s no way to tell what will make someone break down in tears. There are some who will cry at the merest melancholy word, and there are some who need the longest, cruelest speech to...

We are respecting our parents’ wishes….They didn’t want to shelter us from the world’s treacheries. They wanted us to survive them.

Algunas veces, sólo decir que odias algo y que alguien esté de acuerdo contigo puede hacer que te sientas mejor, a pesar de lo terrible de la situación.

The sky was dark blue twilight, pretty to look at but lonely to walk under.

One of the greatest myths in the world – & the phrase ‘greatest myths’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘big fat lies’ — is that troublesome things get less & less troublesome if...

What a schmuck!

The expression ‘Those who can’t do, teach’ is a curious one, because if you look at the world , you’ll see that teachers aren’t particularly worse at doing things than anyone else, so perhaps the...

If you were smart,” Genghis said, “you would have borrowed the silverware of one of your friends.””We never thought of that,” Klaus said. When one is forced to tell atrocious lies, one often feels a...

Wicked people never have time for reading. It’s one of the reasons for their wickedness.

The French expression ‘cul-de-sac’ describes what the Baudelaire orphans found when they reached the end of the dark hallway, and like all French expressions, it is most easily understood when you translate each French word...

It is always better to ask a question than to answer one.

Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.

Get scared later, and if you’re scared now remember what Kit always said. If you’re not scared, she told me, it’s not bravery. And you want to be brave, don’t you, Snicket?

Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone...

If the Baudelaire orphans had been stalks of celery, they would not have been small children in great distress, and if they had been lucky, Carmelita Spats would have not approached their table at this...