Top 500 Lemony Snicket Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “I said that if she won I would tell all of you something I learned about her this summer. Jackie Woodson is allergic to watermelon. Just let that sink in your minds. I said, ‘You have to put that in a book.’ And she said, ‘You put that in a book.’ And I said, ‘I’m only writing a book about a black girl who’s allergic to watermelon if you, Cornel West, Toni Morrison and Barack Obama say, ‘This guy’s OK.”

— Lemony Snicket

452. “The two Baudelaires, of course, had no idea what the hospital’s policy was concerning surgical paperwork, but they were beginning to see that the crowd would believe just about anything if they thought it was being said by a medical professional.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

454. “Where are the books? All these elegant bookshelves are empty.”

— Lemony Snicket

455. “Like People, animals will become frightened and likely do whatever you say if you whip them enough.”

— Lemony Snicket

456. “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 least nobody will ever ask me if I’m left-handed or right-handed,” but most of us would say something more along the lines of, “Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!”

— Lemony Snicket

457. “I saw a woman wearing suspicious lettuce!”

— Lemony Snicket

458. “And Sunny crawled around solemnly biting each of Edgar and Albert’s shoes, leaving small teeth marks in each one so she would not be forgotten.”

— Lemony Snicket

459. “One could say, in fact, that no story really has a beginning, and that no story really has an end.”

— Lemony Snicket

460. “My aunt always says that if you put your mind to it, you can do absolutely anything,” Jake said. “Is that true?” “No,” I said. “It’s nonsense.”

— Lemony Snicket

461. “The children had been using these spatulas as oars, but rowing a boat is very hard work, particularly if one’s traveling companions are too busy bragging to help out, and Violet was trying to think of a way they might move the boat faster.”

— Lemony Snicket

462. “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

463. “There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.”

— Lemony Snicket

464. “It was confusing pretending to be completely different people, particularly because it had been so long since the Baudelaires were able to be the people they really were.”

— Lemony Snicket

465. “It’s a loathsome situation in which we find ourselves.”

— Lemony Snicket

466. “We’ve discovered a way to dilute.”

— Lemony Snicket

467. “Gregor was involved with something called Volatile Fungus Deportation.”

— Lemony Snicket

468. “I confess that if I were in Violet’s place, with only a few minutes to open a locked suitcase, instead of on the deck of my friend Bela’s yacht, writing this down, I probably would have given up hope. I would have sunk to the floor of the bedroom and pounded my fists against the carpet wondering why in the world life was so unfair and filled with inconveniences.”

— Lemony Snicket

469. “Uncle Monty tell.”

— Lemony Snicket

470. “The passageway was still as dark as a bar of extra-dark chocolate sitting in a planetarium covered in a thick, black blanket.”

— Lemony Snicket

471. “The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery.”

— Lemony Snicket

472. “La gente malvagia non ha mai tempo per leggere.”

— Lemony Snicket

473. “It’s rarely good when someone says your full name, except perhaps when it’s at the end of “I have a package for.”

— Lemony Snicket

474. “The fire was set in the Library of Records by the Baudelaire murderers, and has spread to the Sore Throat Ward, the Stubbed Toe Ward, and the Accidentally Swallowed Something You Shouldn’t Have Ward.”

— Lemony Snicket

475. “It was a mystery, like what the S stood for in Theodora’s name. I kept walking, with nothing but solitude for company. “Solitude” is a fancy name for being all by yourself. It’s not a bad name, I thought.”

— Lemony Snicket

476. “I once threw myself down a flight of stairs rather than face even one moment with a milliner, at whose shop I quit working after discovering the sinister truth about her berets, only to find that the paramedic who repaired my fractured arm was a man who had fired me from a job playing accordion in his orchestra after only two and half performances of a certain opera.”

— Lemony Snicket

477. “Don’t be absurd!” Jerome said. “Ruthless kidnapping villains aren’t in!”

— Lemony Snicket

478. “Behind these two booths was an enormous roller coaster, a phrase which here mean ’a series of small carts where people can sit and race up and down steep and frightening hills of tracks, for no discernible reason.”

— Lemony Snicket

479. “She crawled in front of the Baudelaires’ guardian and bared her teeth at Captain Sham.”

— Lemony Snicket

480. “In the days that followed, the Baudelaire orphans had pits in their stomachs. In Sunny’s case it was understandable, because when Klaus had divided the peach, she had gotten the part with the pit.”

— Lemony Snicket

481. “I do what I do,” I said, “in order to do something else.”

— Lemony Snicket

482. “In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a person who quotes great American novelists is anything but treacherous, and in general a man who says you needn’t worry about money, or a man who smokes cigarettes, is somewhere in between.”

— Lemony Snicket

483. “There are some who go through life with a shadow hanging over them, particularly if they live in a building which has long wide awnings.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

486. “A good breakfast is better than a bad one, like a good book is better than having your toe chopped off.”

— Lemony Snicket

487. “Hal is on his way.” The nurse announced reentering the room.”

— Lemony Snicket

488. “It doesn’t matter if you look ridiculous, not if you are with people you know and trust. If you are with people you know and trust and.”

— Lemony Snicket

489. “Mcguffin,” Sunny said, which meant “Your scheming means nothing in this place.”

— Lemony Snicket

490. “And as the Baudelaires told Hector their long story, they began to feel as if the handyman was carrying more than their suitcases. They felt as if he was carrying each word they said, as if each unfortunate event was a burden that Hector was helping them with. The story of their lives was so miserable that I cannot say they felt happy when they were through telling it, but by the time Sunny concluded the whole long story, the Baudelaires felt as if they were carrying much less.”

— Lemony Snicket

491. “Akroyd!” Sunny cried, a phrase which here means “Roger.”

— Lemony Snicket

492. “In an emergency, one often learns that one’s companions can be of even less help in extraordinary circumstances than they are during an average evening.”

— Lemony Snicket

493. “If you like books with happy endings then put this book down immediately.”

— Lemony Snicket

494. “I stayed up all night reading.”

— Lemony Snicket

495. “A taciturn writer, for instance, might produce only one short poem every ten years, which is unlikely to annoy anyone, whereas someone who writes twelve or thirteen books in a relatively short time is likely to find themselves hiding under the coffee table of a notorious villain, holding his breath, hoping nobody at the cocktail party will notice the trembling backgammon set, and wondering, as the inkstain spreads across the carpeting, if certain literary exercises have been entirely worthwhile.”

— Lemony Snicket

496. “Except people who have no respect for the alphabet! And they’re not here! Are they?” “No,” Klaus said. “We have a great deal of respect for the alphabet.” “I should say so!” the captain cried. “Klaus Baudelaire disrespect the alphabet? Why, it’s unthinkable! Aye! It’s illegal! It’s impossible! It’s not true! How dare you say so! No – you didn’t say so! I apologize! One thousand pardons! Aye!”

— Lemony Snicket

497. “One of the greatest myths in the world – and the phrase ‘greatest myths is just a fancy way of saying ‘big fat lies’ – is that troublesome things get less and less troublesome if you do them more and more.”

— Lemony Snicket

498. “Klaus had not told his siblings about the book, because he didn’t want to give them false hope.”

— Lemony Snicket

499. “I submit these assorted pieces of evidence I’m unwilling to categorize!”

— Lemony Snicket

500. “Sometimes, when you are reading a book you are enjoying very much, you begin thinking so hard about the characters and the story that you might forget all about the author, even if he is in grave danger and would very much appreciate your help. The same thing can happen if you are looking at a photograph. You might think so hard about whatever is in the photograph that you forget all about the person behind the camera.”

— Lemony Snicket