- Lemony Snicket: Being afraid of hurricanes is perfectly rational because they can be quite sinister and destructive. But a fear of real estate agents, a term which here means "people who assist in the buying and selling of houses," would be an irrational fear
- [sarcastically]
- Lemony Snicket: because nothing sinister has ever come from the real estate market.
- Aunt Josephine: It's a curious thing, the death of a loved one. It's like climbing the stairs to your room in the dark, thinking that there's one more step than there is. And your foot falls through the air, and there is a sickly feeling of dark surprise.
- Lemony Snicket: The expression, "You can't lock up the barn after the horses are gone," was a favorite of a woman who meant a great deal to me, even after she was trampled. The expression simply means that sometimes even the best of plans will occur to you when it is too late.
- Violet Baudelaire: You don't care for the sound, but maybe I could use your rattle to invent a burglar alarm, so Aunt Josephine won't have to rely on piles of cans.
- Klaus Baudelaire: And, Sunny, you can have the deck of cards. You enjoy playing poker more than I do.
- Violet Baudelaire: That leaves you with the doll.
- Klaus Baudelaire: Plenty of boys enjoy playing with dolls.
- Taxi Driver: With a body of water as large as Lake Lachrymose, anything can happen. You know what's interesting is the storms in Herman Melville's works are more metaphorical or even allegorical rather than the naturalistic style of someone like Thoreau if you know what I mean. The shore represents our tenuous hold on the earthly nature of moral existence. And the turbulent waters represent the villainy and troubles in our own lives, like a threatening rowboat getting closer and closer with each passing moment.
- Aunt Josephine: I am so happy to have three young new charges to learn everything, from the Oxford comma to the Wesleyan semicolon. Grammar. Grammar! It's the greatest joy in life, don't you find?
- Violet Baudelaire: Does this have anything to do with our parents?
- Aunt Josephine: Certainly not. It has to do with my husband, Ike. He was my best friend. My partner. And one of the few people I knew who could whistle with crackers in his mouth. His specialty was Beethoven's fourth string quartet.