- Justice Strauss: A library is like an island in a vast sea of ignorance. Don't you agree?
- Klaus Baudelaire: I do. Particularly if the library is tall, and the surrounding area has been flooded.
- Klaus Baudelaire: Violet, I'm not sure I understand this passage of Proust.
- Violet Baudelaire: Could you read it to me?
- Klaus Baudelaire: "Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."
- Lemony Snicket: In the years since, I've inquired what became of the Brothers Poe. One followed his father into the world of banking. The other lives in a cave and talks to sheep. They each think the other has it better.
- Lemony Snicket: Trouble and strife can cover this world like the dark of night, or like smoke from a suspicious fire. And when that happens, all good, true, and decent people know that it's time to volunteer.
- Violet Baudelaire: Klaus, what's that thing Einstein said?
- Klaus Baudelaire: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
- Count Olaf: Well, I hope I can prove myself to be the father you never had.
- Violet Baudelaire: We had a father.
- Count Olaf: Yes, I know. And a mother. Remarkable woman. Flammable. So, Poe, do I need to sign for them or something?
- Lemony Snicket: But being raised in a violent and sinister environment by a man more interested in one's fortune than comfort and well-being is not better than nothing. And as the Baudelaires would discover, there are some things that even a long night of introspection cannot change. The Baudelaire orphans knew they had to find a way out of their dreadfully unfortunate circumstances and, perhaps, solve the mystery of how they ended up in them. I have the same dedication to researching and presenting this story no matter what danger it puts me in. Trouble and strife can cover this world like the dark of night or like smoke from a suspicious fire. And when that happens, all good, true and decent people know that it is time to volunteer.
- Justice Strauss: I don't mean to seem like a lonely woman who's over-invested in the lives of someone else's children.
- Count Olaf: You do have that aura.
- Lemony Snicket: [Quoting Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin] "To invite people to dine with us is to make ourselves responsible for their well-being as long as they are under our roofs."
- Lemony Snicket: If you are interested in stories with happy endings, then you would be better off somewhere else. In this story, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning, and very few happy things in the middle.
- Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender: Money is really a corrupting influence.
- Count Olaf: Well, let's not get carried away.
- Mr. Poe: I should think at least a fraction of your unhappiness will turn to excitement when you meet this man. I know he's certainly very eager to meet you. And he's employed as an actor, so you know his excitement is genuine. His name is Count Olaf.
- Count Olaf: [to Justice Strauss] Is this about the children? I apologize for the noise. I told them to cry using their inside voices.
- Count Olaf: Do you have children, Justice Strauss?
- Justice Strauss: Me? Oh, no. No. No, I always hoped I would, but I'm married to the law, and you can't very well have book babies now, can you?
- Count Olaf: Well, you dodged a bullet. Let me tell you, those children are monsters. I open my home to them, and all they do is complain. "The bathroom is filthy. The rat is noisy. The bed is cramped."
- [lowering his voice]
- Count Olaf: I think living in a mansion has spoiled them.
- Justice Strauss: Well, they did just lose their... Did you say "bed?"
- Count Olaf: I meant bed as in more than one bed, obviously. The plural of bed is bed.
- Justice Strauss: Well, I wouldn't know. I live alone.
- Count Olaf: Please, come in, and mind you wipe your feet on the mat so you don't track in any mud. And don't forget your enormous fortune!