80+ Best A Series of Unfortunate Events Quotes: Exclusive Selection

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of thirteen novels written by American author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. Profoundly inspirational A Series of Unfortunate Events quotes will challenge the way you think, and make your life worth living.

If you’re searching for profound quotes from children’s literature that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of inspiring Anne of Green Gables quotes, powerful Charlotte’s Web quotes and famous Little Women quotes.

Famous A Series of Unfortunate Events Quotes

Does this seem like a nightmare? A bad dream? Because that’s the effect I was going for. — Count Olaf

A library is like an island in a vast sea of ignorance. — Justice Strauss

Ah, cocktail hour. When the sky is gold with the promise of fortunes and sparkling with the light of a thousand stolen sapphires. — Count Olaf

All of the food that Café Salmonella served had something to do with salmon. There is nothing particularly wrong with salmon, of course, but like caramel candy, strawberry yogurt, and liquid carpet cleaner, if you eat too much of it you are not going to enjoy your meal. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

First impressions are often entirely wrong. Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

For some stories, its easy. The moral of The Three Bears, for instance, is Never break into someone elses house. The moral of Snow White is Never eat apples. The moral of World War I is Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Genius ideas are simple, like the wheel or neurosurgery. — Count Olaf

Girls were falling all over me in school, and not just because I would extend my leg when they walked by. I was a lone wolf, a mysterious stranger, a member of the drama club. — Count Olaf

Having a brilliant idea isn’t as easy as turning on a light. But just as a single bulb can illuminate even the most depressing of rooms, the right idea can shed light on a depressing situation. — Count Olaf

I can no more suggest the reading of this woeful book than I can recommend wandering around the woods by yourself, because like the road less traveled, this book is likely to make you feel lonely, miserable, and in need of help. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

I can see the headline now: Murderer Attempts To Murder Murderer. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

I know that having a good vocabulary doesnt guarantee that Im a good person, but it does mean Ive read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

I thought having prisoners would be fun, but it’s like having a pet or an in-law. You can lock them up, then you have to feed them. — Count Olaf

If someone had told me, that day at the beach, that before long Id find myself using my four teeth to scrape the bark off trees, I would have said they were psychoneurotically disturbed. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

If you are baking a pie for your friends, and you read an article entitled How to Build a Chair instead of a cookbook, your pie will probably end up tasting like wood and nails instead of like crust and fruity filling. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, then you would be better off somewhere else. In this story, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning, and very few happy things in the middle. — Lemony Snicket

If you have ever lost a friend, you know that it makes your world feel incomplete, like a puzzle with a piece missing, or one half of a broken spyglass. — Lemony Snicket

If you use fancy-pants words first thing in the morning, you’re going to end up a very lonely man. — Count Olaf

If you want a mule to move, you can reward it with a carrot or you can hit it with a stick. — Count Olaf

In a world both frightening and unlucky, there are a few comforts. One of them is making new friends. Friends can make you feel the world is smaller and safer than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences. When you meet people like that, you may find your world feels a little more complete. Like the missing piece of a puzzle or two halves of a broken spyglass. — Lemony Snicket

In a world too often governed by corruption and arrogance, it can be difficult to stay true to one’s literary and philosophical principles. — Lemony Snicket

In every library, there is a single book to answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind. — Olivia Caliban

Is this about the children? I apologize for the noise. I told them to cry using their inside voices. — Count Olaf

It is a curious thing, but as one travels the world getting older and older, it appears that happiness is easier to get used to than despair. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

It is a relief, in hectic and frightening times, to find true friends. Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

It is hard for decent people to stay angry at someone who has burst into tears, which is why it is often a good idea to burst into tears if a decent person is yelling at you. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and thats the end of it. But when bad news is written down, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the news again and again. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

It may be difficult to believe, but, at any given moment, someone somewhere is in a dangerous situation and other people in some other place are dancing and having a good time. The world is often like this. A celebration here, terrible trouble just outside the door. — Lemony Snicket

It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

It’s time. Let’s lose our first patient. — Count Olaf

Marriage is like sharing a root beer float, or agreeing to be the back half of a horse costume. Even when it’s happening onstage, you should only do it with the people you love. — Count Olaf

Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. — Lemony Snicket

Mr. Poe meant well, but a jar of mustard probably also means well and would do a better job of keeping the Baudelaires out of danger. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

My body is a temple, young man. I would never sully my skin the way so many young people do nowadays with their hedonistic lifestyle of loud music and abstinence. — Count Olaf

My brother once said suspicious activity is like good jazz. We’ll know it when we hear it. — Jacques Snicket

My whole life is just going around and around in circles. Like one of those things a hamster plays on before you put it in the oven. — Count Olaf

Nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself, particularly if the idea comes from a sinister villain. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Parts of the plan were unplanned. That’s the plan. I mean, you don’t want to overplan a plan. — Count Olaf

Patience is like a grating foreign accent. It can wear thin. — Count Olaf

People arent either wicked or noble. Theyre like chefs salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

People don’t always get what they deserve in this world. — Esmé Squalor

Perhaps the hardest part of life on the lam is that you have to keep moving, often in a direction that seems wrong, dangerous or an agonizing combination of both. — Lemony Snicket

Pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity, Sunny said, which you will probably recall means something along the lines of I must admit I dont have the faintest idea of what is going on. Sunny had now said this particular thing three times over the course of her life, and she was beginning to wonder if this was something she was only going to say more and more as she grew older. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Please, come in, and mind you wipe your feet on the mat so you don’t track in any mud. And don’t forget your enormous fortune! — Count Olaf

Poetry? You’ll stop at nothing to make me talk. — Count Olaf

Poor little orphan. Haven’t you learned anything this year? Week? Season? — Count Olaf

Scram, police! Wait, wait! That’s us. Right. — Count Olaf

Sitting with friends, talking about something important is one of the most powerful and necessary forces in the world. It is the way so many noble organizations begin, with a conversation between associates or even brothers. — Lemony Snicket

Sleep is a natural part of life, like cosmetics or frivolous lawsuits. —

Some people think destiny is something you cannot escape, such as death or a curdled cheesecake, both of which always turn up sooner or later. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Some things in life are difficult to understand, even after years and years of thinking about them while wandering alone through desolate landscapes, usually during the off-season. — Lemony Snicket

Sometimes a story ends before it’s over with unanswered questions, unresolved plots, lingering suspense, blanketing the world like snow. Or like smoke from a suspicious fire. — Esmé Squalor

Sometimes life feels like some dismal story presented as entertainment by some cruel and invisible author. It isn’t a pleasant way to feel. But what choice do we have? — Count Olaf

Sooner or later, everyones story has an unfortunate event or two. The solution, of course, is to stay as far away from the world as possible and lead a safe, simple life. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Starving people can’t eat money. Plus, if we give money to poor people, then they won’t be poor anymore, and we won’t have anyone to feel sorry for. — Lemony Snicket

Tears are curious things, for like earthquakes or puppet shows, they can occur at any time, without any warning and without any good reason. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Terrible ending. The villagers should have been eaten like in Citizen Kane. — Lemony Snicket

That’s all there is; there isn’t anymore. — Justice Strauss

The phrase ‘in the dark,’ which I’m sure you know, can refer to not only one’s shadowy surroundings, but also to the secrets which might be surrounding you, too. Every day, the sun goes down over all of these secrets, so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. — Esmé Squalor

The stove is a bit like a servant. You have to whack it sometimes to get it to work. — Lemony Snicket

The whole world is cruel. School is just a microcosm. — Count Olaf

The worst surroundings in the world can be tolerated if the people in them are interesting and kind. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

There are countless types of books in this world, which makes good sense because there are countless types of people. — Lemony Snicket

There are times when the entire world seems wrong. The way a reptile room without any reptiles seems wrong. The way a bookshelf without any books seems wrong. Or a loved one’s house without the loved one. — Lemony Snicket

There’s no word to describe the feeling of waking up and knowing instantly that something is terribly wrong. — Larry Your-Waiter

This school has a new kind of spirit energy. A sense of unity and joy which you usually cannot find unless you are at a birthday party or a public hanging. — Daniel Handler

Those people that say they want to help you are the ones that let you down the most. — Count Olaf

To Beatrice – My love flew like a butterfly, until death swooped down like a bat. — Hal

Trouble and strife can cover this world like the dark of night, or like smoke from a suspicious fire. And when that happens, all good, true and decent people know that it’s time to volunteer. — Lemony Snicket

Unless you are a murderer or a taxidermist, it is rare to have actual skeletons in your closet as opposed to metaphorical ones. — Jacques Snicket

Waiting is one of lifes hardships. It is hard enough to wait for chocolate cream pie while burnt roast beef is still on your plate. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

We all learn bravery the hard way. — Lemony Snicket

What happens in a certain place can stain your feelings for it, just as ink can stain a white sheet of paper. You can never forget what transpired in that place just as words in ink can never be unwritten. — Lemony Snicket

What is bad news to one person might be good news to someone else. And sometimes, what seems like good news might actually be something full of sadness, misery, and grief. — Lemony Snicket

When I was 14, I was crowned False Spring Queen. We had this whole ceremony with my Snow Scout troupe at the top of a mountain. They did a little dance around a pole. It’s where I discovered my love of pole dancing. Then, on the way back down the mountain, we stayed in a cave full of hibernating bears. Which, incidentally, is when I discovered my great love of fur. — Lemony Snicket

When somebody is a little bit wrong, it is often quite easy to explain to them how and why they are wrong. But if somebody is surpassing wrong–say, when a waiter bites your nose instead of taking your order–you can often be so surprised that you are unable to say anything at all. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

When you read an enormous number of books, you are going to learn a great deal of information that might not be useful for a long time. But then, suddenly, like a strike of lightning or a grand piano falling out of a window, an opportunity arises to use the information gleaned from even the most unlikely piece of reading. — Lemony Snicket

When you think of me, she said quietly, think of a food you love very much. — A Series Of Unfortunate Events

You see, a scheme is like a fire. Everything must be in order for it to work. You need matches, torches, an angry mob that won’t listen to reason, and the right sort of kindling. Orphans, for instance, tied to the wooden stake. — Esmé Squalor

Your cruelty is as sweet as this coffee I’m dumping the sugar into. — Larry Your-Waiter