- Lemony Snicket: Besides getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving news that your worst enemy has been awarded free ice cream, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. From the moment you introduce yourself in a job interview, you're participating in a ritual you are likely to find humiliating and sinister. You may be asked to perform some meaningless task which you are in no position to refuse. You are likely to be watched carefully while you perform this task, and you will likely pretend to be far more enthusiastic than you actually are. And you are likely to be evaluated, a word which here means, "Tested over and over again for no reason other than your own embarrassment." The worst thing about a job interview is that it is likely to fill you with despair, whether you are dismissed immediately and find yourself wandering unemployed across a desolate landscape, weeping and moaning, or whether your are hired and find yourself wandering across that same desolate landscape, weeping and moaning in exchange for a salary.
- Hook-Handed Man: Maybe some wine would help us all relax.
- White-Faced Woman #1: Yes, yes, Olaf. Wine.
- White-Faced Woman #2: You can get that fruity Merlot from the trunk!
- Count Olaf: Drinking and driving? Are you insane? That's incredibly reckless.
- White-Faced Woman #1: I get to go first. I'm the oldest.
- White-Faced Woman #2: I'm older than you.
- Hook-Handed Man: I'm younger, but I have more experience.
- Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender: The concept of "first" seems to problematically be centered around patriarchy.
- Lemony Snicket: These files contain a complete report of the tragic events that transpired during my apprenticeship at Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Which had to wait until now to be told, due to respect for the surviving parties, and copyright law.
- Esmé Squalor: If she's so good at fortune-telling, why does she live out here in the Hinterlands instead of having her own television show in the city?
- Count Olaf: I tried that for nine years. Look where it got me.
- Librarian: You have set fire after fire, but it's never enough, for time flies like a poison dart, and the force of destiny cages us all.
- Lemony Snicket: Miracles are like meatballs because nobody can agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear. A person might say that a sunrise is a miracle, even though it happens every day and far too early in the morning. Somebody else might say that leaping successfully from a train is a miracle, even though that happens every day and far too early in the morning. There is another similarity shared by a miracle and a meatball, which is that they both might appear to be one thing and turn out to be another. This could happen at a gathering of a secret society, particularly if it's held at a second-rate Italian restaurant.
- Larry Your-Waiter: "Well, young lady, have you been good to your mother?" Now, that code means, "Run away. Your house is on fire."
- Librarian: [Fortune-Telling] You... I don't know. There's just a lot going on here.
- Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender: That's fair.
- Gustav: What I really want people to take away from my films are the themes, the characters, and, of course, the secret messages in the subtitles. For example, my character might say, "Deborah, please return my end table." But look through the spyglass and you see the word "Department."
- Uncle Monty: The Mamba du Mal is one of the deadliest snakes in the world, which is why I'm training them to send and receive secret messages.
- Jacquelyn Scieszka: Georgina, you're looking fabulous. How do you manage to get the handsomest dates?
- Dr. Georgina Orwell: Certainly not because I hypnotize them.
- Aunt Josephine: I feel fierce and formidable. Let's build a house on the edge of a cliff. And let's use commas and semicolons with reckless abandon.
- Ike Anwhistle: Let's have children.
- Aunt Josephine: What's the thing Marvin Gaye said? "Let's get it on."
- Lemony Snicket: My name is Lemony Snicket, and long ago I experienced a terrible night at a masked ball, when a secret message arrived too late to help the woman I loved. So, I know how it feels to have your life spin out of control, driven by the cruel whims of an unpredictable madman.
- Violet Baudelaire: We're lucky Count Olaf decided not to drink and drive.
- Klaus Baudelaire: And we're lucky this trunk has rust holes so we can breathe.
- Count Olaf: The Daily Punctilio just put my obituary on the front page.
- Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender: "Surprisingly Low Turnout."
- Count Olaf: Look, a sign that we're on the right path. Let's go.
- Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender: Couldn't that be a sign we're on the wrong path?
- Hook-Handed Man: Not a good time.
- Esmé Squalor: I don't like how she looks at you!
- Count Olaf: Darling, when I was on stage, or occasionally in several minimum security penitentiaries, strange women would offer me things all the time. Flowers, tasteful photographs, marriage proposals. And some of them were wealthy women. Rich dowagers enchanted by my roguish charm, with no head for estate planning whatsoever. And did I accept? That's not the point.
- Aunt Josephine: Isn't it wonderful. At last we have a headquarters for our secret organization. I feel fierce and formidable. Let's build a house on the edge of a cliff. And let's use commas and semicolons with reckless abandon.
- Ike Anwhistle: Let's have children.
- Aunt Josephine: What's the thing Marvin Gaye said? Let's get it on...
- Jacques Snicket: When meeting a volunteer in the field, you may determine their allegiance with the use of a code phrase: "The world is quiet here."
- Jacquelyn Scieszka: With the loss of our best lion tamer and her husband, I'm afraid the Volunteer Feline Detectives have escaped into the Hinterlands.
- Lemony Snicket: What if we're wrong? No group of people, no matter how noble or well-read, or how secret their headquarters, can extinguish the fires of the world.
- Larry Your-Waiter: I really must insist that you finish your drink, because you never know when a root beer float can solve all your problems.
- Esmé Squalor: I always thought crystal balls were as fake as those eyelashes.
- Librarian: No, no, no, they are as real as the jewels on your teeny-tiny engagement ring.
- Librarian: Once a day, when spirits call, you may ask one question of the ball. And then spirits come in smoke and fire to answer you your heart's desire.
- Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender: That seems plausible.
- Librarian: You have questions for Madame Lulu?
- Count Olaf: Of course they don't have any questions. They're lucky to have the work. Without this carnival, they would just be working in human resources with the rest of the freaks.
- Librarian: You report to House of Freaks, where work accommodations will be provided. Also, health insurance, although nearby hospital is... How you say...
- Count Olaf: Burned down?
- Librarian: Out of network.
- Lemony Snicket: Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.