A Series of Unfortunate Quotes

I’m rereading A Series of Unfortunate Events and documenting my favourite quotes, definitions, and Sunny-isms. Note: all page references are according to the UK editions published by Egmont Books Ltd.

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Okay so I know I haven't been active on here for ever but I just wanted everyone to know that today I wrote about asoue in my third year literature exam and it is my greatest achievement to date

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'Waning' - The word "waning" here means "dim, and making everything look extra-creepy"

Page 110, Chapter 7, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Autopilot' - a word which here means "measuring pencils without really thinking about them."

Page 102, Chapter 7, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Austere' - a word which here means that Mr. Remora's stories were particularly boring, Mrs. Bass' obsession with the metric system was particularly irritating, and Nero's administrative demands were particularly difficult,

Page 101, Chapter 7, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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It is not very polite to interrupt a person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can you can hardly stop yourself.

Page 98, Chapter 6, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Bit his tongue' - a phrase which here means that he simply kept quiet.

Page 91, Chapter 6, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Austere' - a word which here means "stern and severe"

Page 84, Chapter 6, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunae Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Companionable comfort' - a phrase which here means many things, all of them happy even though it is quite difficult to be happy while hearing a terrible sonata performed over and over by a man who cannot play the violin, while attending an atrocious boarding school with an evil man sitting undoubtedly planning something dreadful.

Page 80 - 81, Chapter 5, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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There is one, and only one, advantage to somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyways, and the advantage is that they often play so loudly that they cannot hear if the audience is having a conversation. It is extremely rude, of course, for an audience to talk during a concert performance, but when the performance is a wretched one, and lasts six hours, such rudeness can be forgiven.

Page 74, Chapter 5, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Inevitable' - a word which here means "a lifetime of horror and woe"

Page 70-71, Chapter 5, 'The Austere Academy' A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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The expression "following suit" is a curious one, because it had nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing. If you follow suit, it means you do the same thing somebody else has just done. If all your friends decided to jump off a bridge into the icy waters of an ocean or river, for instance, and you jumped in right after them, you would be following suit. You can see why following suit can be a dangerous thing to do, because you could end up drowning simply because somebody else thought of it first.

Page 70, Chapter 4, 'The Austere Academy' A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'glaze over' - 'the phrase "glaze over" here means "ache slightly out of boredom."

Page 59, Chapter 4, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'A poor teacher' - 'a phrase which here does not mean "a teacher who doesn't have a lot of money" but "a teacher who is obsessed with the metric system."

Page 58, Chapter 4, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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If you have walked into a museum recently - whether you did so to attend an art exhibition or to escape from the police - you may have noticed a type of painting known as a triptych. A triptych has three panels, with something different painted on each of the panels. For instance, my friend Professor Reed made a triptych for me, and he painted fire on one panel, a typewriter on another, and the face of a beautiful, inteligent woman on the third. The triptych is entitled 'What Happened to Beatrice' and I cannot look upon it without weeping.

Page 55, Chapter 4,'The Academy Is', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Impressionable age' - the phrase "impressionable age" here means "ten and eight years old, respectively"

Page 39, Chapter 3, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Gingerly' The word 'gingerly' here means "avoiding territorial crabs"

Page 38, Chapter 3, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket

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'Territorial' - a word which here means "unhappy to see small children in their living quarters."

Page 33, Chapter 3, 'The Austere Academy', A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket