Lemony Snicket quotes from A Series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony

Sometimes life feels like some dismal story, presented as entertainment by some cruel and invincible author.

Lemony Snicket

Besides getting several paper cuts on the same day or receiving the news that your worst enemy was rewarded free ice cream, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. From the moment you introduce yourself, you are participating in a ritual you are likely to find humiliating and sinister. You may be asked to perform some meaningless task which you are in no position to refuse. You are likely to be watched carefully while you perform this task, and you likely have to pretend to be far more enthusiastic than you actually are. And you are likely to be evaluated, a word which here means tested over and over for no reason other than your own embarrassment. The worst thing about a job interview is that it is likely to fill you with despair, whether you are dismissed immediately and find yourself wandering unemployment across a desolate landscape, weeping and moaning or whether you are hired and find yourself wandering across that same desolate landscape, weeping and moaning in exchange for a salary.

Lemony Snicket

Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it.

Lemony

"Partners" can mean several things. It could mean "two people who own a lumbermill together, or a cupcakery." Now, with the advent of more progressive cultural mores, not to mention certain High Court rulings, it could also mean...

I do all the work, he irons my clothes.

Lemony Snicket

This advice was given to me by one of the bravest women I've ever known- a woman, who, at that very moment, was running for her life toward the edge of a cliff. Fortunately, like all women, my sister was an expert at doing the impossible.

Come, now. There's nowhere to run.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

Except off a cliff.

Which we plan to throw you off anyway.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

But perhaps this doesn't have to end in violence.

Give us the Sugar Bowl, and you can go.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

Cross our hearts.

And hope to die. What do you say, Snicket?

I'd rather jump off a cliff.

Should we follow her?

Woman with Hair but no Beard

We'll send the eagles; they're probably starving.

[patting her pregnant belly] Oh, you're a trooper, kiddo. I didn't have my first hang-gliding lesson 'till I was seven.

Lemony Snicket

Of course, not all mentors are good. Many years ago in my own organization, there were those who preyed on impressionable minds by taking them in at a point in their life when they might be particularly lost or vulnerable.

You look lost.

Count Olaf

[scoffs] How can I be lost? There are signs everywhere, which seems kind of dumb for a secret organization.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

We meant figuratively. [They step forward]

Count Olaf

Who are you? [stiffens] Wait... You're that man with the hair and the woman with the beard, or vice versa! I've heard about you.

And vice versa. We know what happened at the opera.

Woman with Hair but no Beard.

And we know how you've spent your nights since.

Wandering these tunnels.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

Directionless.

Alone.

Count Olaf

...Have you been following me?

With great interest, for some time.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

Your friends in V.F.D. betrayed you, but a young man with your talents doesn't need friends.

He needs guidance.

Count Olaf

I'll pass. I'm a tortured, brooding loner now. I've even taken up journaling. I'd rather be alone.

Woman with Hair but no Beard

Why, what a pity.

There's so much we could teach you. [Olaf looks intrigued]

Lemony Snicket

Bad mentors can lead you down a slippery slope, whether you encounter them years later at the top of a mountain, or you belong to their acting troupe.

They've been in that tent for a wile. I wonder what they're planning.

I hope it's a picnic.

It's never a picnic.

Not anymore.

Henchperson of Indeterminate gender

I joined Count Olaf because I thought he could teach me things, like how to harness my natural charisma into a career in the performing arts. [sighs] But I'm beginning to question my life choices.

[nods] I know what you mean. I get the serious creeps from those serious creeps.

Henchperson of Indeterminate gender

They definitely killed those carnival freaks.

Oh, yeah.

[simultaneously] Dead as doornails!

[to Sunny, who is in a birdcage] What do you think they're up to, baby? [they all look at her]

Sunny Baudelaire

*indistinct garble (Trouble.)