Top 500 Lemony Snicket Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “The word “bubble” is in the dictionary, for instance, as is the word “peacock,” the word “vacation,” and the words “the” “author’s” “execution” “has” “been” “canceled,” which make up a sentence that is always pleasant to hear.”

— Lemony Snicket

202. “Nobody can teach you how to like something. You can like it, or you can pretend to like it, in order to make someone happy.”

— Lemony Snicket

203. “Arguing with somebody is never pleasant, but sometimes it is useful and necessary to do so. Just the other day, for example, it was useful and necessary for me to have an unpleasant argument with a medical student because if he hadn’t let me borrow his speedboat I would now be chained inside a very small waterproof room, instead of sitting in a typewriter factory typing our this woeful tale.”

— Lemony Snicket

204. “The last time I saw you, I was trying to throw thumbtacks into your cradle!”

— Lemony Snicket

205. “They are stupid, aren’t they?” Dr. Orwell agreed, as though they were talking about the weather instead of insulting young children.”

— Lemony Snicket

206. “I’m happier than a pig eating bacon!”

— Lemony Snicket

207. “Nobody likes to be tapped on the knee. Practically nobody likes to be tapped anywhere.”

— Lemony Snicket

208. “But unlike this book, the dictionary also discusses words that are far more pleasant to contemplate. The word ‘bubble’ is in the dictionary, for instance, as is the word ‘peacock,’ the word ‘vacation,’ and the words ‘the’ ‘author’s’ ‘execution’ ‘has’ ‘been’ ‘canceled,’ which makes a sentence that is always pleasant to hear.”

— Lemony Snicket

209. “We’ll see what you find out,” Stew said. “You’ll find out what it feels like to be thrown from a speeding train to the rocky bottom of a drained sea. Except you won’t really find out, because you’ll be dead. Get it? What I mean is, it’ll kill you when I throw you from this train so you’ll be in no state to find out what it feels like. Get it? Due to your death by falling from a train.”

— Lemony Snicket

210. “As I’m sure you know, whenever there is a mirror around, it is almost impossible not to take a look at yourself. Even though we all know what we look like, we all like just to look at our reflections, if only to see how we’re doing.”

— Lemony Snicket

211. “It is true there are more important things than dinner, but it is difficult to keep those things in mind when you haven’t had dinner.”

— Lemony Snicket

212. “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.”

— Lemony Snicket

213. “The night has a thousand eyes,’” Kit said hoarsely, and lifted her head to face the villain. The Baudelaires could tell by her voice that she was reciting the words of someone else. “’And the day but one; yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one: yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.”

— Lemony Snicket

214. “One of the most troublesome things in life is that what you do or do not want has very little to do with what does or does not happen... But the sad truth is that the truth is sad, and that what you want does not matter. A series of unfortunate events can happen to anyone, no matter what they want...”

— Lemony Snicket

215. “There are some things you cannot explain to anyone, even when they have been explained to you, over and over, almost since the day you were born.”

— Lemony Snicket

216. “The bears bear hard hard yarn yarns” you are unlikely to be confused.”

— Lemony Snicket

217. “Of course, all nights are dark days, because night is simply a badly lit version of day, due to the fact that the Earth travels around and around the sun reminding everyone that it is time to get out of bed and start the day with a cup of coffee or a secret message folded up into a paper airplane that can sail out the barred window of a ranger station.”

— Lemony Snicket

218. “You would do well to be less particular. With a library it is easier to hope for serendipity than to look for a precise answer.”

— Lemony Snicket

219. “Death is something you cannot escape, such as death, or a cheesecake that has curdled, both of which always turn up sooner later.”

— Lemony Snicket

220. “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.”

— Lemony Snicket

221. “Some people say that a sunrise is a miracle, because it is somewhat mysterious and often very beautiful, but other people say it is simply a fact of life, because it happens every day and far too early in the morning.”

— Lemony Snicket

222. “But the sad truth is that the truth is sad, and what you want does not matter.”

— Lemony Snicket

223. “He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. But.”

— Lemony Snicket

224. “And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

— Lemony Snicket

225. “When we met, you were pretty, and I was lonely. Now, I am pretty lonely.”

— Lemony Snicket

226. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

— Lemony Snicket

227. “The first sentence was “This tome will endeavor to scrutinize, in quasi-inclusive breadth, the epistemology of ophthalmologically contrived appraisals of ocular systems and the subsequent and requisite exertions imperative for expugnation of injurious states,” and as Violet read it out loud to her sister, both children felt the dread that comes when you begin a very boring and difficult book.”

— Lemony Snicket

228. “Deciding on the right thing to do in a situation is a bit like deciding on the right thing to wear to a party. It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier.”

— Lemony Snicket

229. “It doesn’t matter if you never see someone again, I told myself. There are millions of people in the world, and most of them never see each other in the first place. You hoped to know Ellington Feint forever, but there’s no such thing as forever, really. Everything is much shorter than that.”

— Lemony Snicket

230. “Sooner or later, everyone’s story has an unfortunate event or two – a schism or a death, a fire or a mutiny, the loss of a home or the destruction of a tea set. The only solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life.”

— Lemony Snicket

231. “But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, “You are noble enough,” and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt.”

— Lemony Snicket

232. “I’m not a math tutor,” I said. “I don’t feel the need to check your work.”

— Lemony Snicket

233. “Oftentimes. when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.”

— Lemony Snicket

234. “We sipped coffee. It was still awful, but there was something wonderful about sitting together and sipping even the bitterest of beverages. You cannot wait for an untroubled world to have an untroubled moment.”

— Lemony Snicket

235. “The world is swirling with so many mysteries and secrets that nobody will ever track down all of them. But with a book you can stay up very late, reading until all the secrets are clear to you. The questions of the world are hidden forever, but the answers in a book are hiding in plain sight.”

— Lemony Snicket

236. “For obvious reasons, I never told you about my notebook, with a cover as green as mansions long ago, which I use as a commonplace book, a phrase which here means ’place where I have collected passages from some of the most important books I have read.”

— Lemony Snicket

237. “A mystery is solved with a story. The story starts with a clue, but the trouble is that you usually have no idea what the clue is, even if you think you know.”

— Lemony Snicket

238. “When you think of me,” she said quietly “think of a food you love very much.”

— Lemony Snicket

239. “Life has so many surprises that the only real surprise in life is when nothing surprising happens.”

— Lemony Snicket

240. “Fire is like greed, my comrade. It spreads across the world, thinking only of itself, seizing everything it sees, and ruining everyone’s fun.”

— Lemony Snicket

241. “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.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

243. “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other books. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.”

— Lemony Snicket

244. “One could say, in fact, that no story really has a beginning, and that no story really has an end, as all of the world’s stories are as jumbled as the items in the arboretum, with their details and secrets all heaped together so that the whole story, from beginning to end, depends on how you look at it.”

— Lemony Snicket

245. “But the law is an odd thing. For instance, one country in Europe has a law that requires all its bakers to sell bread at the exact same price. A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit. And a town not too far from where you live has a law that bars me from coming within five miles of its borders.”

— Lemony Snicket

246. “The truth is that you can never be sure if you have decided on the right thing until the party is over, and by then it is too late to go back and change your mind, which is why the world is filled with people doing terrible things and wearing ugly clothing, and so few volunteers who are able to stop them.”

— Lemony Snicket

247. “As I’m sure you know, a good night’s sleep helps you perform well in school, and so if you are a student you should always get a good night’s sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which here means ’flunk.”

— Lemony Snicket

248. “Tapi di dunia ini baik hati saja tidak cukup, apalagi kalau orang harus menjaga anak-anak agar terhindar dari bahaya.”

— Lemony Snicket

249. “Her hair came first, a wild tangle as if several heads of hair were having a wrestling match, and the rest of her followed, frowning and tall. There are many mysteries I have never solved, and the hair of my chaperone is perhaps my most curious unsolved case.”

— Lemony Snicket

250. “It was a puzzle, a dark and lonely one, and if I were a piece in this puzzle, I did not know where it belonged. I needed to put myself aside, just for a little while, until I saw where I might fit in.”

— Lemony Snicket