If you wish to avoid an unpleasant story you had best put this book down

What should we call him?" Klaus asked. "You should call him Dr. Montgomery," Mr. Poe replied, "unless he tells you to call him Montgomery. Both his first and last names are Montgomery, so it doesn't make much difference." "His name is Montgomery Montgomery?" Klaus said, smiling. "Yes, and I'm sure he's very sensitive about that, so don't ridicule him," Mr. Poe said, coughing again into his handkerchief.

Tell me what it is, or prepare to eat harpoon.

I don't know why wicked places generally look wicked. You'd think they'd look nice, to fool people, but they hardly ever do.

I liked, I admit, that we didn’t pretend there hadn’t been other girls. There was always a girl on you in the halls at school, like they came free with a backpack.

The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli, rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen.

Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.