If you like books with happy endings then put this book down immediately.

Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you'd see.

I'm always loath to make generalizations about what is for children and what isn't. Certainly children's literature as a genre has some restrictions, so certain things will never pop up in a Snicket book. But I didn't know anything about writing for children when I started - this is the theme of naïveté creeping up on us once more - and I sort of still don't, and I'm happy that adults are reading them as well as children.

You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. That’s why the dark is always close by.

I want to love you and take you pretty places. Yes, I have things wrong, but also I can walk through walls if you'll let me show you.

It is not the diamonds or the birds, the people or the potatoes, it is not any of the nouns. The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. It is the way love gets done despite every catastrophe.

Normally it is not polite to go into somebody’s room without knocking, but you can make an exception if the person is dead, or pretending to be dead.