Book of Quotes

The Miserable Mill

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket

- "They're book addicts."

- "I'm sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what's on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on this inside would would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does."

- "I know what is going on," said Sir. "I am the Boss! Of course I know!"

- "Optimist" is a word which here refers to a person, such as Phil, who thinks hopeful and pleasant thoughts about nearly everything. For instance, if an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!"

- "Just knowing that they could read made the Baudelaire orphans feel as if their wretched lives could be a little brighter."

- "Sometime during your life—in fact, very soon—you may find yourself reading a book, and you may notice that a book's first sentence can often tell you what sort of story your book contains."

- "If you have ever had a miserable experience, then you have probably had it said to you that you would feel better in the morning. This, of course, is utter nonsense, because a miserable experience remains a miserable experience even on the loveliest of morning."

- "Appearance matters a great deal because you can often tell a lot about people by looking at how they present themselves."

- "To Beatrice-

My love flew like a butterfly

Until death swooped down like a bat

As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said:

'That's the end of that"

- "Never mind what my name is," the man said. "No one can pronounce it anyway. Just call me Sir."

- "This knowledge sits in my heart, heavy as a paperweight."

- "My chauffeur once told me that I would feel better in the morning, but when I woke up the two of us were still on a tiny island surrounded by man-eating crocodiles, and, as I'm sure you can understand, I didn't feel any better about it."

- "The expression 'quiet as mice' is a puzzling one, because mice can often be very noisy, so people who are being quite as mice may in fact be squeaking and scrambling around. The expression 'quiet as mimes' is more appropriate, because mimes are people who perform theatrical routines without making a sound. Mimes are annoying and embarrassing, but they are much quieter than mice, so 'quiet as mimes' is a more proper way to describe how Violet and Sunny got up from their bunk, tiptoed across the dormitory, and walked out into the night."

- "You have heard, many times I'm sure, that you should not judge a book by it's cover. But just as it is difficult to believe that a man who is not a doctor wearing a surgical mask and a while wig will turn out to be a charming person, it was difficult for the children to believe that Advanced Ocular Science was going to cause them anything but trouble."

- "As anyone who's ever been to a doctor knows, doctors are not necessarily your friends, any more than mail deliverers are you friends, or butchers are you friends, or refrigerator repair-people are you friends. A doctor is a man or woman whose job it is to make you feel better, that's all, and if you've ever had a shot you know that the statement 'Doctors can't hurt you' is simply absurd."

- "Klaus grinned. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but it was a very interesting book, and I'm so pleased that it's coming in handy."

- "The Baudelaire orphans looked worriedly out the window. They weren't very happy about just being dropped off in a strange place, as if they were a pizza being delivered instead of three children all alone in the world."

- "In the vast majority of cases, however, getting into trouble has nothing to do with one's self-esteem. It usually has much more to do with whatever is causing the trouble - a monster, a bus driver, a banana peel, killer bees, the school principal - than what you think of yourself."

- "Raisins are healthy, and they are inexpensive, and some people may even find them delicious. But they are rarely considered helpful."

- "If someone had told me, that day at the beach, that before long I'd find myself using my four teeth to scrape the bark off trees, I would have said they were psychoneurotically disturbed."

- "I'm sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what's on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on the inside would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does. Appearance matters a great deal, because you can often tell a lot about people by looking at how they present themselves."

- "It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and I'm sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and that's the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the news again and again. For instance, I once loved a woman, who for various reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred-page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness has been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Beatrice is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life. The Baudelaire orphans"

- "It pain me to tell you that once again Count Olaf would appear with yet another disgusting scheme, and that Mr. Poe would once again fail to do anything even remotely helpful."

- "These brats know a lot of words,' Shirley said, in her ridiculously fake high voice. 'They're book addicts. But we can still create an accident and win the fortune!"

- "The word "dreadful," even when used three times in a row, did not seem like a dreadful enough word to describe everything that had happened."

- "A fair deal, as everyone knows, is when both people give something of more or less equal value. If you were bored with laying with your chemistry set, and you gave it to your brother in exchange for his dollhouse, that would be a fair deal. If someone offered to smuggle me out of the country in her sailboat, in exchange for free tickets to an ice show, that would be a fair deal. But working for years in a lumbermill in exchange for the owner's trying to keep Count Olaf away is an enormously unfair deal, and the three youngsters knew it."

- "The Baudelaire children wolfed down the peach, and under normal circumstances, it would not have been polite to eat something so quickly and so noisily, particularly in front of someone they did not know very well. But these were not at all normal, so even a manners expert would excuse them for their gobbling."

- "Sunny did not eat the wood, of course, but she chewed on it and pretended it was a carrot, or an apple, or a beef and cheese enchilada, all of which she loved."

- "Time after time he[Count Olaf] had come very close to succeeding, and time after time the Baudelaire orphans had revealed his plan, and time after time he had escaped-and all Mr. Poe had ever done was cough."

- "Please excuse the torn edges of this note. I am writing to you from inside the shack the Baudelaire orphans were forced to live in while at Prufrock Preparatory School, and I am afraid that some of the crabs tried to snatch my stationery away from me. On Sunday night, please purchase a ticket for seat 10-J at the Erratic Opera Company's performance of the opera Faute de Mieux. During Act Five, use a sharp knife to rip open the cushion of your seat. There you should find"