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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.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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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.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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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.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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But I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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For Beatrice--My love for you shall live forever. You, however, did not.
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Lemony Snicket (The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2))
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For Beatrice, when we first met,
I was lonely, and you were pretty.
Now I am pretty lonely.
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Lemony Snicket (The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #10))
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For Beatrice, summer without you is as cold as winter. Winter without you, is even colder.
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Lemony Snicket (The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #8))
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For Beatrice, our love broke my heart,
and stopped yours.
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Lemony Snicket (The Carnivorous Carnival (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #9))
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For Beatrice - you will always be in my mind, in my heart and in your grave.
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Lemony Snicket (The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #5))
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I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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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.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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For Beatrice,
I cherished, you perished,
The world's been nightmarished.
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Lemony Snicket (The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #13))
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For Beatrice-
When we were together I felt breathless.
Now you are.
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Lemony Snicket (The Vile Village (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #7))
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It takes years for the land to recuperate from a fire, but even in the darkest of ashes eventually something can grow.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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Everything. A letter may be coded, and a word may be coded. A theatrical performance may be coded, and a sonnet may be coded, and there are times when it seems the entire world is in code. Some believe that the world can be decoded by performing research in a library. Others believe that the world can be decoded by reading a newspaper. In my case, the only thing that made sense of the world was you, and without you the world will seem as garbled and tragic as a malfunctioning typewrit9.
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Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12.5))
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To Beatrice-
My love flew like a butterfly
Until death swooped down like a bat
As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said:
'That's the end of that
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Lemony Snicket (The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #4))
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To Beatrice-
darling, dearest, dead.
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Lemony Snicket (The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1))
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For Beatrice- I would much prefer it if you were alive and well.
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Lemony Snicket (The Wide Window (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #3))
Lemony Snicket (The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #13))
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For Beatrice β
I cherished, you perished,
The world's been nightmarished.
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Lemony Snicket (The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #13))
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I am certain that over the course of your own life, you have noticed that people's rooms reflect their personalities. In my room, for instance, I have gathered a collection of objects that are important to me, including a dusty accordion on which I can play a few sad songs, a large bundle of notes on the activities of the Baudelaire orphans, and a blurry photograph, taken a very long time ago, of a woman whose name is Beatrice. These are items that are very precious and dear to me.
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Lemony Snicket (The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1))
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For Beatrice-
No one could extinguish my love,
or your house.
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Lemony Snicket (The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12))
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With any word, there are subconscious associations, which simply means that certain words make you think of certain things, even if you don't want to. The word 'cake,' for example, might remind you of your birthday, and the words 'prison warden' might remind you of someone you haven't seen in a very long time. The word 'Beatrice' reminds me of a volunteer organization that was swarming with corruption, and the word 'midnight' reminds me that I must keep writing this chapter very quickly or else I will probably drown.
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Lemony Snicket (The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #8))
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It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and Iβm sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and thatβs the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the news again and again. For instance, I once loved a woman, who for various reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred-page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness has been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Beatrice is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life. The Baudelaire orphans
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Lemony Snicket (The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #4))
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And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before, if I could somehow go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea where she met EsmΓ© Squalor for the first time.
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Lemony Snicket (The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #8))
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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, intelligent woman on the third. The triptych is entitled What Happened to Beatrice and I cannot look upon it without weeping.
I am a writer, and not a painter, but if I were to try and paint a triptych entitled The Baudelaire Orphans' Miserable Experiences at Prufrock Prep, I would paint Mr. Remora on one panel, Mrs. Brass on another, and a box of staples on the third, and the results would make me so sad that between the Beatrice triptych and the Baudelaire triptych I would scarcely stop weeping all da
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Lemony Snicket (The Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #5))
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He was wrong in thinking that by saying 'Nnphnn!' Sunny had been complaining about getting undressed in front of her siblings. Sunny's oversized suit had muffled the word she was really saying, and it was a word that still haunts me in my dreams as I toss and turn each night, images of Beatrice and her legacy filling my weary, grieving brain no matter where in the world I travel and no matter what important evidence I discover.
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Lemony Snicket (The Ersatz Elevator (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #6))
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For Beatriceβ When we met, you were pretty, and I was lonely. Now, I am pretty lonely.
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Lemony Snicket (The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #10))
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For Beatrice - When we met, my life began. Soon after, yours ended.
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Lemony Snicket (The Ersatz Elevator (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #6))
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They did not hop, even though the man had asked them to "hop in," because hopping is something done in the cheerful moments of one's life. A plumber might hop, for instance, if she finally fixed a particularly difficult leak in someone's shower. A sculptor would hop if his sculpture of four basset hounds playing cards was finally finished. And I would hop like nobody has ever hopped before, if I could somehow go back to that terrible Thursday, and stop Beatrice from attending that afternoon tea where she met EsmΓ© Squalor for the first time.
But Violet, Klaus and Sunny did not hop, because they were not plumbers fixing leaks, or sculptors finishing works of art, or authors magically erasing a series of unfortunate events.
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Lemony Snicket (The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #8))
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reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred-page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness has been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Beatrice is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life.
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Lemony Snicket (The Miserable Mill (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #4))