The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #3)

by Lemony Snicket

The Baudelaires thought of grammar—all those rules about how to write and speak the English language—the way they thought of banana bread: fine, but nothing to make a fuss about.

For instance, if you were upset about an ugly pimple on the end of your nose, you might try to feel better by keeping your pimple in perspective. You might compare your pimple situation to that of someone who was being eaten by a bear, and when you looked in the mirror at your ugly pimple, you could say to yourself, “Well, at least I’m not being eaten by a bear.”

I have a friend named Gina-Sue who is socialist, and Gina-Sue has a favorite saying: “You can’t lock up the barn after the horses are gone.”

Tears are curious things, for like earthquakes or puppet shows they can occur at any time, without any warning and without any good reason. “Mr. Poe,” Violet said again, and without any warning she and her siblings burst into tears.

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

Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated. Frustrated babies tend to throw food and make a mess. Frustrated citizens tend to execute kings and queens and make a democracy. And frustrated moths tend to bang up against lightbulbs and make light fixtures all dusty.

To have each other in the midst of their unfortunate lives felt like having a sailboat in the middle of a hurricane, and to the Baudelaire orphans this felt very fortunate indeed.