How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children, and 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. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes. (1.1)
Lemony Snicket isn't wrong here—this book is a pretty big downer. A really funny downer, but still, most definitely a downer.
Quote #2
"Yes, it is a nice day," Mr. Poe said absently, staring out at the empty beach. "I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you children."
The three Baudelaire siblings looked at him. Violet, with some embarrassment, felt the stone in her left hand and was glad she had not thrown it at Mr. Poe.
"Your parents," Mr. Poe said, "have perished in a terrible fire."
The children didn't say anything.
"They perished," Mr. Poe said, "in a fire that destroyed the entire house. I'm very, very sorry to tell you this, my dears."
Violet took her eyes off Mr. Poe and stared out at the ocean. Mr. Poe had never called the Baudelaire children "my dears" before. She understood the words he was saying but thought he must be joking, playing a terrible joke on her and her brother and sister. (1.19-24)
Let the sadness begin. This is horrible news. Can you imagine hearing anything sadder in the entire world when you're a child?
Quote #3
It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed. If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it. For the Baudelaire children, it was of course especially terrible because they had lost both their parents at the same time, and for several days they felt so miserable they could scarcely get out of bed. Klaus found he had little interest in books. The gears in Violet's inventive brain seemed to stop. And even Sunny, who of course was too young to really understand what was going on, bit things with less enthusiasm. (2.1)
Even the things that they loved can't get the Baudelaires out of their grief. These poor little orphans.
Quote #4
The Baudelaire orphans went to the bedroom and glumly packed their few belongings. Klaus looked distastefully at each ugly shirt Mrs. Poe had bought for him as he folded them and put them into a small suitcase. Violet looked around the cramped, smelly room in which they had been living. And Sunny crawled around solemnly biting each of Edgar and Albert's shoes, leaving small teeth marks in each one so she would not be forgotten. (2.19)
So the Baudelaires don't like Mr. Poe's house, but they like the unknown even less. The dismal devil you know is better than the one you don't, right?
Quote #5
"Maybe somebody wants to visit us," Klaus said, without much hope. In the time since the Baudelaire parents' death, most of the Baudelaire orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside, an expression which here means "they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of the Baudelaires, making them very lonely." You and I, of course, would never do this to any of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed. (3.21)
This is a pretty true observation. The Baudelaires must have had many friends and relatives, but no one has come to help the children in their hour of need. What gives? Especially since they're now living with a foul-smelling villain.
Quote #6
"I can't tell you how much we appreciate this," Violet said, carefully. With their kind parents dead and Count Olaf treating them so abominably, the three children were not used to kindness from adults, and weren't sure if they were expected to do anything back. "Tomorrow, before we use your library again, Klaus and I would be more than happy to do household chores for you. Sunny isn't really old enough to work, but I'm sure we could find some way she could help you."
Justice Strauss smiled at the three children, but her eyes were sad. She reached out a hand and put it on Violet's hair, and Violet felt more comforted than she had in some time. "That won't be necessary," Justice Strauss said. "You are always welcome in my home." Then she turned and went into her home, and after a moment of staring after her, the Baudelaire orphans went into theirs. (4.6-7)
Just talking to the orphans makes Justice Strauss a little bit sad. She realizes what kind and sweet people they are and that they probably don't get much love from Count Olaf. She's a little melancholy that she can't help them more.
Quote #7
They then went to their room and crowded together on the one bed, reading intently and happily. Figuratively, they escaped from Count Olaf and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf's evil in loco parentis ways. But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped. In the situation of the orphans, figuratively escaping was not enough, of course, but at the end of a tiring and hopeless day, it would have to do. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny read their books and, in the back of their minds, hoped that soon their figurative escape would eventually turn into a literal one. (5.48)
But it's not all sadness. Okay, it is—but there are moments of relief. Even though the kids are still under Count Olaf's care, they can escape in their minds and find some moments of happiness on their own. Thank goodness for books.
Quote #8
"I want the three of you to feel at home here, now that I am your father."
The children shuddered a little at that, remembering their own kind father and gazing sadly at the poor substitute now sitting across the table from them. (6.12-13)
Count Olaf as a father? We can't imagine anything more sorrow-inducing (or terrifying).
Quote #9
At this point in the story, I feel obliged to interrupt and give you one last warning. As I said at the very beginning, the book you are holding in your hands does not have a happy ending. It may appear now that Count Olaf will go to jail and that the three Baudelaire youngsters will live happily ever after with Justice Strauss, but it is not so. If you like, you may shut the book this instant and not read the unhappy ending that is to follow. You may spend the rest of your life believing that the Baudelaires triumphed over Count Olaf and lived the rest of their lives in the house and library of Justice Strauss, but that is not how the story goes. For as everyone was laughing at Sunny's cry for cake, the important-looking man with all the warts on his face was sneaking toward the controls for the lighting of the theater. (13.58)
We need one last warning. It seem that everything has worked out for the Baudelaires, but our narrator points out that it won't last long—and he is right. This book has itself a very dismal ending indeed.
Quote #10
The Baudelaires bunched up together against the cold night air, and kept waving out the back window. The car drove farther and farther away, until Justice Strauss was merely a speck in the darkness, and it seemed to the children that they were moving in an aberrant—the word "aberrant" here means "very, very wrong, and causing much grief"—direction. (13.75)
What a heartbreaking last line. Just when everything was taking a happy turn, we're plunged back into sadness. The children are separated from the one person who has been kind to them and thrust off into another unknown future. Will someone please get us another box of tissues?