People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.
Nevermore Tree was gargantuan, a word which here means ’having attained an inordinate amount of botanical volume.
The passageway was still as dark as a bar of extra-dark chocolate sitting in a planetarium covered in a thick, black blanket.
There have been only five burglars in the history of robbery who have specialized in rope. All five of these burglars were caught and sent to prison, which is why scarcely any people lock up their rope for safekeeping.
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.
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.
It was confusing pretending to be completely different people, particularly because it had been so long since the Baudelaires were able to be the people they really were.
It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try to readjust the way you thought of things.
They were charming and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery, and despair.
As I’m sure you know, to be in one’s own room, in one’s own bed, can often make a bleak situation a little better.
She hadn’t told Klaus about her plan, because she didn’t want to give him false hope, so without waking him, she gathered up her grappling hook and tiptoed out of her room.
Although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table if elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element if surprise.
Never trust anyone without a book.
We’ve discovered a way to dilute.
Behind these two booths was an enormous roller coaster, a phrase which here mean ’a series of small carts where people can sit and race up and down steep and frightening hills of tracks, for no discernible reason.
The moral of “The Three Bears,” for instance, is “Never break into someone else’s house.” The moral of “Snow White” is “Never eat apples.” The moral of World War One is “Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.
Klaus had not told his siblings about the book, because he didn’t want to give them false hope.
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 a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I’m left-handed or right-handed,” but most of us would say something more along the lines of, “Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!
Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.
The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.