A doctor is a man or woman whose job 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.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill – Lemony Snicket
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.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill – Lemony Snicket
“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!”
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill – Lemony Snicket
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 someone 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 to 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 very 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.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill – Lemony Snicket
In some stories, it’s easy. The more 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.”
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window – Lemony Snicket
It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window – Lemony Snicket
Frustration is an interesting emotional state, because it tends to bring out the worst in whoever is frustrated. Frustrated babies tend to throw food and make a mess. Frustrated citizens tend to execute kings and queens and make a democracy. And frustrated moths tend to bang up against lightbulbs and make light fixtures all dusty.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window – Lemony Snicket
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 might be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window – 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: The Wide Window – Lemony Snicket
Oftentimes, when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Wide Window – Lemony Snicket
The Love Pirate 