“Who are those other two?” asked an Elder in the crowd.

“Who cares?” said Mrs. Morrow, and waved her torch.  “They’re probably more accomplices!  Let’s burn them at the stake, too!”

“Why not?” said another Elder.  “We already have torches and kindling, and I don’t have anything else to do right now.”

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vile Village

“Heni!” she screamed one last time, gnashing her teeth against the eye in frustration, and as she bit the eye, it depressed.  “Depressed” is a word that often describes someone who is feeling sad and gloomy, but in this case it describes a secret button, hidden in a crow statue, that is feeling just fine, thank you.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket

Entertaining a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or entertaining a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do.  If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well.  If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you.  But if you refuse to entertain a notion—which is just a fancy way of saying that refuse to think about a certain idea—you have to be much braver than someone who is merely facing some bloodthirsty animals, or some parents who are upset to find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because 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: The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket

A huge cloud of dust is not a beautiful thing to look at.  Very few painters have done portraits of huge clouds of dust or included them in their landscapes or still lifes.  Film directors rarely choose huge clouds of dust to play the lead roles in romantic comedies, and as far as my research has show, a huge cloud of dust has never placed higher than twenty-fifth in a beauty pageant.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket

In this large and fierce world of ours, there are many, many unpleasant places to be.  You can be in a river swarming with angry electric eels, or in a supermarket filled with vicious long-distance runners.  You can be in a hotel that has no room service, or you can be lost in a forest that is slowly filling up with water.  You can be in a hornet’s nest or in an abandoned airport or in the office of a pediatric surgeon, but one of the most unpleasant things that can happen is to find yourself in a quandary.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket

Although “jumping to conclusions” is an expression, rather than an activity, it is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff, jumping in front of a moving train, and jumping for joy.  If you jump off a cliff, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful landing unless there is something below you to cushion your fall, such as a body of water or an immense pile of tissue paper.  If you jump in front of a moving train, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful voyage unless you are wearing some sort of train-proof suit.  And if you jump for joy, you have a very good chance of experiencing a painful bump on the head, unless you make sure you are standing someplace with very high ceilings, which joyous people rarely do.  Clearly, the solution to anything involving jumping is either to make sure you are jumping to a safe place, or not to jump at all.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vile Village – Lemony Snicket