A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.

— Lemony Snicket

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.

— Lemony Snicket

All cannot be lost when there is still so much being found

— Lemony Snicket

All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.

— Lemony Snicket

A long time ago, there was no such thing as school, and children spent their days learning a trade, a phrase which here means "standing around doing tedious tasks under the instruction of a bossy adult." In time, however, people realized that the children could be allowed to sit, and the first school was invented.

— Lemony Snicket

A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead.

— Lemony Snicket

A new experience can be extremely pleasurable, or extremely irritating, or somewhere in between, and you never know until you try it out.

— Lemony Snicket

An Overall Feeling of Doom that One Cannot Ever Escape no Matter What One Does

— Lemony Snicket

Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair.

— Lemony Snicket

A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

— Lemony Snicket