The Bad Beginning

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book the First: The Bad Beginning (1999) by Lemony Snicket

Characters
Count Olaf, Klaus Baudelaire, Violet Baudelaire, Sunny Baudelaire, Lemony Snicket, Mr. Poe, Justice Strauss, the hook-handed man, the bald man, the wart-faced man, the associate who looks like neither a man nor a woman, the white-faced woman, Polly Poe, the audience at Olaf's play, the Baudelaire parents, the Poe children

Quotes
(in the dedication) To Beatrice - darling, dearest, dead.



Lemony Snicket: (narrating) If you enjoy books with happy endings than you are better off reading some other book.

Lemony Snicket: (narrating) Books about law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is an incentive - the word 'incentive' here means 'an offered reward to persuade you to do something you don't want to do' - to read long, dull, and difficult books.



Lemony Snicket: (narrating) The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.



Sunny Baudelaire: Gack! ("Look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog!")



Klaus Baudelaire: We'd better serve the puttanesca, or who knows what Count Olaf will do to us.



Violet Baudelaire: Fifty years ago there was a woman who left an enormous sum of money to her pet weasel...



Klaus Baudelaire: Around the time of your weasel lady...



(About Count Olaf to Mr. Poe)

Klaus Baudelaire: He has only provided us with one bed.

Violet Baudelaire: He makes us do a great many of difficult chores.

Klaus Baudelaire: He drinks too much wine.



Klaus Baudelaire: (to Violet after she tells Klaus to keep his chin up about Olaf) You're right. But it is very difficult to keep one's chin up when Count Olaf keeps shoving it down.



Mr. Poe: Well, Polly and I had better take our seats. Break a leg, Baudelaires!

Violet Baudelaire: (whispering to Klaus) I wish we could break a leg.



(After Count Olaf puts Sunny in a cage dangling from his tower)

Violet Baudelaire: (desperately, worried) Please. She's just a baby. We'll do anything, anything. Just don't harm her.

Count Olaf: Anything? Anything? Would you, for instance, consider marrying me during tomorrow night's performance?



(To Justice Strauss)

Violet Baudelaire: Count Olaf gives us a lot of responsibility.

Lemony Snicket: (narrating) What she wanted to say was, "Count Olaf is an evil man," but she was well mannered.



Count Olaf: I received a phone call yesterday. From Mr. Poe. He told me you children had been to see him.

Lemony Snicket: (narrating) The children exchanged glances. They had hoped their visit would be taken in confidence, a phrase which here means "kept a secret between Mr. Poe and themselves and not blabbed to Count Olaf."



Sunny Baudelaire: Hux!



''(After Olaf states that raspberries were his favorite berries when he was young)

Lemony Snicket: (narrating) Violet tried to picture Count Olaf as a youngster, but couldn't...



(The wart-faced man has flicked off the lights for himself, the troupe, and Olaf to escape)

Lemony Snicket: (narrating) Members of the audience tripped over theatrical props. Mr. Poe grabbed his wife, thinking it was Count Olaf.