The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2)

by Lemony Snicket

For Beatrice— My love for you shall live forever. You, however, did not.

“His name is Montgomery Montgomery?”

There is a pair of snakes who have learned to drive a car so recklessly that they would run you over in the street and never stop to apologize.

Dramatic irony is a cruel occurrence, one that is almost always upsetting, and I’m sorry to have it appear in this story,

I think we can miss them without being miserable all the time. After all, they wouldn’t want us to be miserable.”

One of the most difficult things to think about in life is one’s regrets. Something will happen to you, and you will do the wrong thing, and for years afterward you will wish you had done something different.

he would slit the throats of the Baudelaire orphans as easily as you or I might eat a small butter cookie.

Holy shit

Waiting is one of life’s hardships. It is hard enough to wait for chocolate cream pie while burnt roast beef is still on your plate. It is plenty difficult to wait for Halloween when the tedious month of September is still ahead of you.

if somebody is surpassingly wrong—say, when a waiter bites your nose instead of taking your order—you can often be so surprised that you are unable to say anything at all.

“If I wanted to harm you, orphan, your blood would already be pouring down these stairs like a waterfall.

I am starting to understand why I am the way I am

Bad circumstances have a way of ruining things that would otherwise be pleasant.

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

Favorite of favorites.

Lucafont,”

Near anagram

in life it is often the tiny details that end up being the most important.

What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for that location, just as ink can stain a white sheet. You can wash it, and wash it, and still never forget what has transpired,

as at so many other times when the middle Baudelaire child did not want to think about his circumstances, he began to read.

Same, Klaus

If one’s safety is threatened, one often finds courage one didn’t know one had,

The story’s moral, of course, ought to be “Never live somewhere where wolves are running around loose,” but whoever read you the story probably told you that the moral was not to lie. This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.

Little Red Riding Hood, an extremely unpleasant little girl who, like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, insisted on intruding on the territory of dangerous animals. You will recall that the wolf, after being treated very rudely by Little Red Riding Hood, ate the little girl’s grandmother and put on her clothing as a disguise.

“Goodness!” he cried. “Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne!

Sometimes even in the most unfortunate of lives there will occur a moment or two of good fortune.

“My sister is a nice girl,” Klaus said, “and she knows how to do all sorts of things.”

Sometimes, when someone tells a ridiculous lie, it is best to ignore it entirely.

“Dominos is a game. Water polo is a game. Murder is a crime,