The world gets grimy and the love object is in stark relief from its surroundings. This is love, a pretty thing on an ugly street and why wouldn't yo… - Daniel Handler

If you feel . . . that well-read people are less likely to be evil, and a world full of people sitting quietly with good books in their hands is preferable to world filled with schisms and sirens and other noisy and troublesome things, then every time you enter a library you might say to yourself, 'The world is quiet here,' as a sort of pledge proclaiming reading to be the greater good.

Mike could see the fellow cooked and ate and sat on a sofa and put his feet up on the table it magazines. Mike didn't care which ones the fellow subscribed to, because Mike had subscribed to the fellow.

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.