WIST Quotations

Snicket, Lemony -- Adverbs, “Collectively” (2006)

Dave — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 15:38:22 +0000

This is love, and the trouble with it: it can make you embarrassed. Love is really liking someone a whole lot and not wanting to screw that up. Everybody’s chewed over this. This unites us, this part of love.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
Adverbs, “Collectively” (2006)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Austere Academy (2000)

Dave — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 17:17:05 +0000

Shyness is a very curious thing, because, like quicksand, it can strike people are any time, and also, like quicksand, it usually makes its victims look down.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Austere Academy (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Austere Academy (2000)

Dave — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 13:58:17 +0000

Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see how this can lead to terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it has floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that you’d made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Austere Academy (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Beatrice Letters (2006)

Dave — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 14:39:55 +0000

I never want to be away from you again, except at work, in the restroom, or when one of us is at a movie the other does not want to see.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Beatrice Letters (2006)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Dave — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 13:26:13 +0000

The sad truth is that the truth is sad.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Dave — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 13:54:34 +0000

It’s hard for decent people to stay angry at someone who has burst into tears, which is why it is often a good idea to burst into tears if a decent person is yelling at you.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Dave — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 14:14:58 +0000

One of the most troublesome things in life is that what you do or do not want has very little to do with what does or does not happen.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Dave — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 17:55:46 +0000

Miracles are like meatballs because nobody knows what they are made of, where they came from, or how often they should appear.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Snicket, Lemony -- The End (2006)

Dave — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 15:26:04 +0000

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

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The End (2006)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Grim Grotto (2004)

Dave — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 16:14:01 +0000

“People aren’t either wicked or noble,” the hook-handed man said. “They’re like chef salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Grim Grotto (2004)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Grim Grotto (2004)

Dave — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 15:51:02 +0000

When you are invited to dine, particularly with people you do not know very well, it always helps to have a conversational opener, a phrase which here means “an interesting sentence to say out loud in order to get people talking.” Although lately, it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca, I keep a list of good and bad conversational openers in my commonplace book in order to avoid awkward pauses at the dinner table. “Who would like to see an assortment of photographs taken while I was on vacation?” for instance, is a very poor conversational opener because it is likely to make your fellow diners shudder instead of talk, whereas good conversational openers are sentences such as “What would drive a man to commit arson?,” “Why do so many stories of true love end in tragedy and despair?,” and “Madam DeLustrio, I believe I’ve discovered your true identity!” all of which are likely to provoke discussions, arguments, and accusations, thus making the dinner party much more entertaining.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Grim Grotto (2004)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Dave — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 17:41:54 +0000

Of all the ridiculous expressions people use — and people use a great many ridiculous expressions — one of the most ridiculous is “No news is good news.” “No news is good news” simply means that if you don’t hear from someone, everything is probably fine, and you can see at once why this expression makes such little sense because everything being fine is only one of many, many reasons why someone may not contact you. Perhaps they are tied up. Maybe they are surrounded by fierce weasels, or perhaps they are wedged tightly between two refrigerators and cannot get themselves out. The expression might as well be changed to “no news is bad news,” except that people may not be able to contact you because they have just been crowned king or are competing in a gymnastics tournament. The point is that there is no way to know why someone has not contacted you until they contact you and explain themselves. For this reason, the sensible expression would be “no news is no news,” except that it is so obvious that it is hardly an expression at all.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Hostile Hospital (2001)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Miserable Mill (2000)

Dave — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 16:14:18 +0000

The moral of “The Three Bears,” for instance, is “Never break into someone else’s house.” The moral of “Snow White” is “Never eat apples.” The moral of World War One is “Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.”

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Miserable Mill (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Miserable Mill, Dedication (2000)

Dave — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 15:49:17 +0000

To Beatrice–
My love flew like a butterfly,
Until death swooped down like a bat,
As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said:
“That’s the end of that.”

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Miserable Mill, Dedication (2000)

More on the referenced poet.

Snicket, Lemony -- The Slippery Slope, ch. 1 (2003)

Dave — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:07:00 +0000

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Slippery Slope, ch. 1 (2003)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Vile Village (2001)

Dave — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 16:25:09 +0000

Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of “systematically assisting Sisyphus’s stealthy, Syst-susceptible sister,” which is easier done than said.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Vile Village (2001)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Vile Village, ch. 1 (2001)

Dave — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 18:21:10 +0000

A newspaper, as I’m sure you know, is a collection of supposedly true stories written down by writers who either saw them happen or talked to people who did. These writers are called journalists, and like telephone operators, butchers, ballerinas, and people who clean up after horses, journalists can sometimes make mistakes.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Vile Village, ch. 1 (2001)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Wide Window (2000)

Dave — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 16:22:53 +0000

Oftentimes, when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Wide Window (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Wide Window (2000)

Dave — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 17:14:45 +0000

If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Wide Window (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Wide Window (2000)

Dave — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 20:16:23 +0000

Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it might be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Wide Window (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- The Wide Window (2000)

Dave — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 16:40:57 +0000

There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational — or, in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t. For instance, the Baudelaire orphans have a fear of Count Olaf, which makes perfect sense, because he is an evil man who wants to destroy them. But if they were afraid of lemon meringue pie, this would be an irrational fear, because lemon meringue pie is delicious and would never hurt a soul. Being afraid of a monster under the bed is perfectly rational, because there may in fact be a monster under your bed at any time, ready to eat you all up, but fear of realtors is an irrational fear. Realtors, as I’m sure you know, are people who assist in the buying and selling of houses. Besides occasionally wearing an ugly yellow coat, the worst a realtor can do to you is show you a house that you find ugly, so it is completely irrational to be terrified of them.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
The Wide Window (2000)

Snicket, Lemony -- Who Could That Be At This Hour?, ch. 1 (2012)

Dave — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 16:18:51 +0000

Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
Who Could That Be At This Hour?, ch. 1 (2012)

Snicket, Lemony -- A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 12, The Penultimate Peril, ch. 13 (2005)

Dave — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:00:40 +0000

The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding — which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together — blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author ….

Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler)
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 12, The Penultimate Peril, ch. 13 (2005)