The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #13)

by Lemony Snicket

The children had been using these spatulas as oars, but rowing a boat is very hard work, particularly if one’s traveling companions are too busy bragging to help out, and Violet was trying to think of a way they might move the boat faster.

if you have ever wondered why horse-drawn carriages and dogsleds are far more common modes of travel than sheep-dragged sleighs, it is because sheep are not well-suited for employment in the transportation industry.

We might even say that the world is always in medias res—a Latin phrase which means “in the midst of things” or “in the middle of a narrative”—and that it is impossible to solve any mystery, or find the root of any trouble,

“Mcguffin,” Sunny said, which meant “Your scheming means nothing in this place.”

It is likely your own eyes were closed when you were born, so that you left the safe place of your mother’s womb—or, if you are a seahorse, your father’s yolk sac—and joined the treachery of the world without seeing exactly where you were going.

the world, no matter how monstrously it may be threatened, has never been known to succumb entirely.