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...

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.

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 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.

If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your...

It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed. If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already...

Just knowing that they could read made the Baudelaire orphans feel as if their wretched lives could be a little brighter.

There are some people who believe that home is where one hangs one’s hat, but these people tend to live in closets and on little pegs.

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...

El olor de comida cocinándose es a menudo relajante.

I think everyone’s parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them.

Pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity.

I am so tired, I can hardly type these worfs.

The world is quiet here.

If you’re not scared, she told me, it’s not bravery.

Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you...

Es muy útil, cuando uno es joven, aprender la diferencia entre «literal» y «figurado». Si algo ocurre de forma literal, ocurre realmente; si algo ocurre de forma figurada, es como si estuviese ocurriendo. Si tú...

…you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.

People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.

…she was so afraid of everything that she made it impossible to really enjoy anything at all.

Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it...

Yes, I know,” Isadora said, and then read her poem, leaning forward so Carmelita Spats would not overhear:”I would rather eat a bowl of vampire batsthan spend an hour with Carmelita Spats.”The Baudelaires giggled and...

Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the...

If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, “Well this isn’t too bad, I don’t have a left arm anymore but at...

I am alone this evening, and I am alone because of a cruel twist of fate, a phrase which here means that nothing has happened the way I thought it would. Once I was a...

You don’t spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two.

But the three siblings were not born yesterday. Violet was born more than fifteen years before this particular Wednesday, and Klaus was born approximately two years after that, and even Sunny who had just passed...

The only thing worse than a perilous adventure is a boring one.

Estoy seguro de que en el transcurso de vuestra vida os habréis dado cuenta de que las habitaciones de las personas reflejan su personalidad. En mi habitación, por ejemplo, he reunido una colección de objetos...

Santa Claus has nothing to do with it,” the latke said. “Christmas and Hanukah are completely different things.””But different things can often blend together,” said the pine tree. “Let me tell you a funny story...

Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t mean we should all...

Writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day.

Every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, “The world is quiet here,” as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good.

The trouble with being patient is that eventually you get tired of it.

With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.

La adopción es una decisión muy importante, algo que no suele suceder de forma impulsiva. Estoy seguro de que vosotros habéis deseado en algún momento de vuestra vida haber sido educados por gente distinta a...

Unless you have been very, very lucky, you have undoubtedly experienced events in your life that have made you cry. So unless you have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session...

There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.

Like many people who dress in black, the lump of coal was interested in becoming an artist.

At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might...