Top 500 Lemony Snicket Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “Sometimes the information you need is not in the most obvious place.”

— Lemony Snicket

352. “There was a town, and there was a girl, and there was a theft. I was living in the town, and I was hired to investigate the theft, and I thought the girl had nothing to do with it. I was almost thirteen and I was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I should have asked the question ‘Why would somebody say something was stolen when it was never theirs in the first place?’ Instead, I asked the wrong question – four wrong questions, more or less.”

— Lemony Snicket

353. “The part libraries play in education is the part bubbles play in champagne. They may seem at first to be merely a shimmery addition, but they are the central feature of the entire enterprise and the reason, joyous and astonishing, to keep imbibing.”

— Lemony Snicket

354. “In the secret pocket, she often kept a small pocket dictionary, which she would take out whenever she encountered a word she did not know.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

357. “Any age was a difficult age for someone needing to get through that window.”

— Lemony Snicket

358. “And a refrigerator may hold a basket of strawberries, which would be important if a maniac said to you, “If you don’t give me a basket of strawberries right now, I’m going to poke you with this large stick.”

— Lemony Snicket

359. “Mr. Poe opened his mouth to say something, but erupted into a brief fit of coughing. “I have made arrangements,” he said finally, “for you to be raised by a distant relative of yours who lives on the other side of town. His name is Count Olaf.”

— Lemony Snicket

360. “Crying is the opposite of scolding, because adults are hardly ever allowed to do it.”

— Lemony Snicket

361. “Count Olaf were watching them even when he wasn’t nearby.”

— Lemony Snicket

362. “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 to get a splinter.”

— Lemony Snicket

363. “Dessert is the most important meal of the day!”

— Lemony Snicket

364. “If you ask one question, it will lead you to another, and another. It’s like peeling an onion.”

— Lemony Snicket

365. “Please excuse the torn edges of this note. I am writing to you from inside the shack the Baudelaire orphans were forced to live in while at Prufrock Preparatory School, and I am afraid that some of the crabs tried to snatch my stationery away from me. On Sunday night, please purchase a ticket for seat 10-J at the Erratic Opera Company’s performance of the opera Faute de Mieux. During Act Five, use a sharp knife to rip open the cushion of your seat. There you should find.”

— Lemony Snicket

366. “It may be difficult to believe, but, at any given moment, someone somewhere is in a dangerous situation and other people in some other place are dancing and having a good time. The world is often like this. A celebration here; terrible trouble just outside the door.”

— Lemony Snicket

367. “The trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives.”

— Lemony Snicket

368. “The expression “following suit” is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing.”

— Lemony Snicket

369. “Sometimes when someone tells a ridiculous lie, it is best to ignore it entirely.”

— Lemony Snicket

370. “Most schools have a loud system of loud bells, which startle the students and teachers at regular intervals and remind them that time is passing even more slowly than it seems.”

— Lemony Snicket

371. “I hate it too,” Violet said, and Klaus looked at his older sister with relief. Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation.”

— Lemony Snicket

372. “No food at home?” “Our father is still very ill,” Squeak squeaked. “Let me take care of you,” I said, and walked behind the counter. “You can’t do that!” Hungry said. “This is my place! It’s private property!” “What it is is a kitchen,” I said, “and these are hungry people. Hungry people should be fed. It takes some people a long time to figure this out, so you think about it and have a seat. I’ll make enough for everybody.”

— Lemony Snicket

373. “But happy moments came rarely and unexpectedly in the Baudelaires’ lives, and the three siblings had learned to accept them.”

— Lemony Snicket

374. “Wretchedness. It is atrociously unfair, of course, that the Baudelaires have so many troubles, but that is the way the story goes. So now that I’ve told you that the first sentence will be “The Baudelaire.”

— Lemony Snicket

375. “We both wanted to know each other’s secrets, and we both wanted the other person to go first.”

— Lemony Snicket

376. “The rest of the place was ransacked, a word for something that is fun to do to someone else’s room, but no fun to have done to yours.”

— Lemony Snicket

377. “And still other people think that destiny is an invisible force, like gravity, or a fear of paper cuts, that guides everyone throughout their lives, whether they are embarking on a mysterious errand, doing a treacherous deed, or deciding that a book they have begun reading is too dreadful to finish.”

— Lemony Snicket

378. “I will love you as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey.”

— Lemony Snicket

379. “We’re an invincible army, but not a victorious one.”

— Lemony Snicket

380. “I give up,” Mr. Poe said, and coughed into his handkerchief. “Five hundred is too much to pay for a big herring statue.”

— Lemony Snicket

381. “The word “haunted”, I’m sure you know, usually applies to a house, graveyard, or supermarket that has ghosts living in it, but the word can also be used to describe people who have seen and heard such horrible things that they feel as if ghosts are inside them, haunting their brains and hearts with misery and despair.”

— Lemony Snicket

382. “I refuse to argue with you, Charles! You’re my partner! Your job is to iron my shirts and cook my omelettes, not boss me around!”

— Lemony Snicket

383. “The phrase ‘for naught’ is simply a fancy way of saying ‘for nothing,’ and it doesn’t matter which phrase you use, for they are both equally difficult to admit.”

— Lemony Snicket

384. “Quagmires, remember?”

— Lemony Snicket

385. “As I’m sure you know, to be in one’s own room, in one’s own bed, can often make a bleak situation a little better.”

— Lemony Snicket

386. “Don’t talk, Snicket,” Theodora said. “Fools talk while wise people listen, so listen up and I’ll tell you how we will solve this case sensibly and properly.”

— Lemony Snicket

387. “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

388. “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

389. “I wondered if villainy was like Armstrong Feint, someone once kind and gentle who lowered himself into treachery, or more like a mysterious beast, hidden in the depths and summoned to wickedness. But all these questions seemed wrong. They weren’t my job. Like Hector and Widdershins, like Josephine and Monty and the rest of my associates, my job was not to ask questions about villainy, but to try and repair its damage.”

— Lemony Snicket

390. “He was such a sneaky and revolting person that the eldest Baudelaire simply could not accept that his scheme was only as evil as the average gym class.”

— Lemony Snicket

391. “Lucky don’t listen to your sister.”

— Lemony Snicket

392. “Although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table if elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element if surprise.”

— Lemony Snicket

393. “It is, as you know, very, very rude and usually unnecessary to use profanity.”

— Lemony Snicket

394. “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

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

— Lemony Snicket

396. “Imagining the worst doesn’t keep it from happening.”

— Lemony Snicket

397. “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

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

— Lemony Snicket

399. “Ike always loved the sunshine, and I like to imagine that wherever he is now, it’s as sunny as can be. Of course, nobody knows what happens to you after you die, but it’s nice to think of my husband someplace very, very hot, don’t you think?”

— Lemony Snicket

400. “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