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

by Lemony Snicket

As I’m sure you know, there are many words in our mysterious and confusing language that can mean two completely different things. The word “bear,” for instance, can refer to a rather husky mammal found in the woods, as in the sentence “The bear moved quietly toward the camp counselor, who was too busy putting on lipstick to notice,” but it can also refer to how much someone can handle, as in the sentence “The loss of my camp counselor is more than I can bear.” The word “yarn” can refer both to a colorful strand of wool, as in the sentence “His sweater was made of yarn,” and to a long and rambling story, as in the sentence “His yarn about how he lost his sweater almost put me to sleep.” The word “hard” can refer both to something that is difficult and something that is firm to the touch, and unless you come across a sentence like “The bears bear hard hard yarn yarns” you are unlikely to be confused.

This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives.

Very Flavorless Diet.”

Some days are long, such as at the height of summer, when the sun shines for a very long time, or Halloween day, which always seems to last forever until it is finally time to put on one’s costume and demand candy from strangers, and some days are short, particularly during the wintertime or when one is doing something enjoyable, such as reading a good book or following random people on the street to see where they will go, and so if someone is as honest as the day is long, they may not be honest at all.

“Feet of clay” is an expression which refers to a person who appears to be honest and true, but who turns out to have a hidden weakness or a treacherous secret.

If someone turns out to have feet of clay, your opinion of them may topple, just as a statue will topple if its base turns out to be badly constructed.

“Oh, I’m glad Ink is safe,” Kit said, and the Baudelaires thought they could almost hear her smile. “That’s my special nickname for the Incredibly Deadly Viper. Ink kept me good company on this raft after we were separated from the others.”

there was a group of people known as the Cimmerians.

“A schism,” Kit said quietly. “Gesundheit,” Erewhon said.

Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

Stretched out as far as the eye could see were piles of objects, heaps of items, towers of evidence, bales of materials, clusters of details, stacks of substances, hordes of pieces, arrays of articles, constellations of details, galaxies of stuff, and universes of things—an accumulation, an aggregation, a compilation, a concentration, a crowd, a herd, a flock, and a register of seemingly everything on Earth.

It was dark underneath the roots of the tree, and for a moment the Baudelaires tried to adjust to the gloom and figure out what this place was, but then the middle Baudelaire remembered the flashlight, and turned it on so he and his siblings would no longer be in the dark in the dark.

It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.

some authors insert confusing sentences in the middle of a book just to confuse anyone who might be skimming. Three very short men were carrying a large, flat piece of wood, painted to look like a living room.

“My brother used to call it ‘The Great Unknown,’”

“‘The

The night has a thousand eyes,’” Kit said hoarsely, and lifted her head to face the villain. The Baudelaires could tell by her voice that she was reciting the words of someone else. “‘And the day but one; yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one: yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.’”

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 then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.

To My Kind Editor: The end of THE END can be found at the end of THE END. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket