My stepfather said that the amount of treachery in this world is enormous and that the best we could do was one small noble thing. - Daniel Handler

It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.

The pages of this book, I'm sorry to inform you, contain such unpleasantries as a giant pincer machine, a bad casserole, a man with a cloud of smoke where his head should be, a hypnotist, a terrible accident resulting in injury, and coupons.

"A long time ago, there was no such thing as school, and children spent their days learning a trade, a phrase which here means "standing around doing tedious tasks under the instruction of a bossy adult." In time, however, people realized that the children could be allowed to sit, and the first school was invented."