Top 500 Lemony Snicket Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “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

402. “Klaus had known for all twelve of his years that his older sister found a hand on her shoulder comforting – as long as the hand was attached to an arm, of course.”

— Lemony Snicket

403. “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

404. “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

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

— Lemony Snicket

406. “With any word, there are subconscious associations, which simply means that certain words make you think of certain things, even if you don’t want to.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

408. “I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else... and I will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.”

— Lemony Snicket

409. “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

410. “You cannot live far from the treachery of the world, because eventually the treachery will wash up on your shores.”

— Lemony Snicket

411. “A short woman might be difficult to see on a crowded city street, particularly if she has disguised herself as a mailbox, and people keep putting letters in her mouth.”

— Lemony Snicket

412. “I have a long list of things I’d rather not do.”

— Lemony Snicket

413. “A rug feels like a lion, but that doesn’t mean you can ride it.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

416. “I like a story that could never happen to me. If I want real life I’ll read a newspaper.”

— Lemony Snicket

417. “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

418. “In the vast majority of cases, however, getting into trouble has nothing to do with one’s self-esteem. It usually has much more to do with whatever is causing the trouble – a monster, a bus driver, a banana peel, killer bees, the school principal – than what you think of yourself.”

— Lemony Snicket

419. “She was stronger than Stew Mitchum, or maybe she just wanted something more than he did.”

— Lemony Snicket

420. “Never mind what my name is,” the man said. “No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir.”

— Lemony Snicket

421. “Troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them, and that you should avoid doing them unless they are absolutely urgent.”

— Lemony Snicket

422. “Everything. A letter may be coded, and a word may be coded. A theatrical performance may be coded, and a sonnet may be coded, and there are times when it seems the entire world is in code. Some believe that the world can be decoded by performing research in a library. Others believe that the world can be decoded by reading a newspaper. In my case, the only thing that made sense of the world was you, and without you the world will seem as garbled and tragic as a malfunctioning typewrit9.”

— Lemony Snicket

423. “She wouldn’t have to be lying to be wrong.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

425. “Most field trips contain sinister plots.”

— Lemony Snicket

426. “In every other place on Earth, nobility and integrity are vanishing quickly.”

— Lemony Snicket

427. “A young man who asks too much about clothing will find himself the subject of unflattering rumors.”

— Lemony Snicket

428. “Uncle Monty tell.”

— Lemony Snicket

429. “I had seen buildings burn before, as part of my training and as part of my childhood. I had seen small homes and enormous mansions devoured by fire, and I had seen flames destroy factories and symphony halls and houses of worship. A school seems worse, I thought as the fire roared into the sky. Even when the school is empty, it’s a terrible thing.”

— Lemony Snicket

430. “As I’m sure you know, there are two types of “What?” in the world. The first type simply means “Excuse me, I didn’t hear you. Could you please repeat yourself?” The second type is a little trickier. It means something more along the lines of “Excuse me, I did hear you, but I can’t believe that’s really what you meant.”

— Lemony Snicket

431. “The map is not the territory,” Snicket’s chaperon advises him. “That’s an expression which means the world does not match the picture in our heads.”

— Lemony Snicket

432. “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

433. “Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.”

— Lemony Snicket

434. “The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery.”

— Lemony Snicket

435. “But you can’t read every story, and answer every question even if you’d like to.”

— Lemony Snicket

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

— Lemony Snicket

437. “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

438. “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

439. “Tee hee torture!”

— Lemony Snicket

440. “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

441. “It is the things that have a history, L. Compared to them we are ghosts.”

— Lemony Snicket

442. “So it goes,′ Prosper Lost said, a little sadly. ‘There are some stories you never get to finish.”

— Lemony Snicket

443. “Some of the bravest and most resourceful people in the world have come to bad ends.”

— Lemony Snicket

444. “We’re all afraid, but that didn’t stop us.”

— Lemony Snicket

445. “No matter what documents you investigate, and what objects you retrieve, you many never answer the questions that are most important to you, but nevertheless, sooner or later you must finish whatever file you have begun.”

— Lemony Snicket

446. “It is good to see people happy with one another. It is a glimpse of a world in which everyone is that way. A happy world might be boring, I told myself, but watching Jake grin at Cleo grinning at Jake grinning at Cleo and back again, I thought it was worth the risk.”

— Lemony Snicket

447. “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

448. “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

449. “But I will take a page from the book of the Snow Scout leader, and skip ahead to the next interesting thing that happened, which was very, very late at night, when so many interesting parts of stories happen and so many people miss them because they are asleep in their beds, or hiding in the broom closet of a mustard factory, disguised as a dustpan to fool the night watchwoman. It.”

— Lemony Snicket

450. “Josephine caught my eye and gave me a signal we’d used for years to indicate that one of us had to leave. The signal was mouthing the words “I have to leave” and pointing at the door.”

— Lemony Snicket