It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and Iโm sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and thatโs the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the bad news again and again.
Daniel HandlerThe way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.
Daniel HandlerTears are curious things, for like earthquakes or puppet shows, they can occur at any time, without any warning and without any good reason.
Daniel HandlerUndeveloped, the whole thing,tossed into a box before we really had a chance to know what we had, and that's why we broke up.
Daniel HandlerGoodness! Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite her! Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!
Daniel HandlerIn the time since the Baudelaire parents' death, most of the Baudelaire orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside, an expression wich here means "they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of the Baudelaires, making them lonely". You and I, of course, would never do this to any of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.
Daniel Handler