It is a curious thing, but as one travels the world getting older and older, it appears that happiness is easier to get used to than despair. The second time you have a root beer float, for instance, your happiness at sipping the delicious concoction may not be quite as enormous as when you first had a root beer float, and the twelfth time your happiness may be still less enormous, until root beer floats begin to offer you very little happiness at all, because you have become used to the taste of vanilla ice cream and root beer mixed together. However, the second time you find a thumbtack in your root beer float, your despair is much greater than the first time, when you dismissed the thumbtack as a freak accident rather than part of the scheme of a soda jerk, a phrase which here means "ice cream shop employee who is trying to injure your tongue," and by the twelfth time you find a thumbtack, your despair is even greater still, until you can hardly utter the phrase "root beer float" without bursting into tears. It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.
About This Quote
About Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket was pen name and fictional character. Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler and a fictional character of his creation. Handler has published various children's books under the name, including A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has sold over 60 million copies and spawned a 2004 film and Netflix TV series from 2017 to 2019 of the same name. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Happiness — Thoughts on finding joy, contentment, and fulfilment