The Infinite Library

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”

“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. 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 and readjust the way you thought of things.”

“If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.”

“Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.”

“If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means 'flunk'.”

“I suppose I'll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies.”

“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.”

“Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.”

“Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.”

“Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.”

“Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.”

“It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.”

“A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.”

“Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

“Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch or you might simply get covered in sap and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors where it is harder to get a splinter.”

“If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.”

“All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.”

“When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.”

“Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.”

“Siblings that say they never fight are most definitely hiding something”

“For Beatrice, when we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty. Now I am pretty lonely.”

“This is my knife. It is very sharp and very eager to hurt you.”

“...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.”

“Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.”

“Of course, it is boring to read about boring thing, but it is better to read something that makes you yawn with boredom than something that will make you weep uncontrollably, pound your fists against the floor, and leave tearstains all over your pillowcase, sheets, and boomerang collection.”

“I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and ats the horseradish loves the miyagi, and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness of the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp... I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close... I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don't marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else--and i will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.”

“There is nothing particularly wrong with salmon, of course, but like caramel candy, strawberry yogurt, or liquid carpet cleaner, if you eat too much of it you are not going to enjoy your meal.”

“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. For instance, if you wake up to the sound of twittering birds, and find yourself in an enormous canopy bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand-squeezed orange juice on a silver tray, you will know that your day will be a splendid one. If you wake up to the sound of church bells, and find yourself in a fairly big regular bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of hot tea and toast on a plate, you will know that your day will be O.K. And if you wake up to the sound of somebody banging two metal pots together, and find yourself in a small bunk bed, with a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all, you will know that your day will be horrid.”

“Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation.”

“As I am sure you know, when people say 'It's my pleasure,' they usually mean something along the lines of, 'There's nothing on Earth I would rather do less.' [...]”

“There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.”

“You don't spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two.”

“The sad truth is the truth is sad.”

“There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different.”

“A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.”

“They're book addicts.”

“Klaus sighed, and opened a book, and as at so many other times when the middle Baudelaire child did not want to think about his circumstances, he began to read.”

“Neither were you [born yesterday], unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life.”

“Those unable to catalog the past are doomed to repeat it.”

“It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.”

“I never want to be away from you again, except at work, in the restroom or when one of us is at a movie the other does not want to see.”

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them”

“In any case, this is how all our stories begin, in darkness with our eyes closed, and all our stories end the same way, too, with all of us uttering some last words—or perhaps someone else’s—before slipping back into darkness as our series of unfortunate events comes to an end.”

“I love no one but you, I have discovered, but you are far away and I'm here alone.”

“If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn't mean that you would be a midget if you were bald.”

“Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.”

“Just because something is traditional is no reason to do it, of course. Piracy, for example, is a tradition that has been carried on for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean we should all attack ships and steal their gold.”