Every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, "The world is quiet here," as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good.

There are many reasons, of course, why someone might snap their fingers and grin. If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingers and grin to demonstrate that the music had charms that could soothe your savage breast. If you were employed as a spy, you might snap your fingers and grin in order to deliver a message in secret snapping-and-grinning code.

Appearance matters a great deal because you can often tell a lot about people by looking at how they present themselves.

I didn't realize this was a sad occasion.

I found powerful the idea that everything we have is, in effect, stolen from everybody else.

I don’t smoke, although it looks fantastic in films. But I light matches on those thinking blank nights when I crawl my route out onto the roof of the garage and the sky while my parents sleep innocent and the lonely cars move sparse on the faraway streets, when the pillow won’t stay cool and the blankets bother my body no matter how I move or lie still. I just sit with my legs dangling and light matches and watch them flicker away.

Nowhere in the world is safe," Count Olaf said. Not with you around," Violet agreed. I'm no worse than anyone else," Count Olaf said.