A certain Russian writer said that happy families are all alike, which is absurd. Some happy families do nothing but train seals all day, while others prefer to paint pictures of flowers on pieces of pottery and sell them for outrageous prices at fairs. There are happy families who consist of nothing but a happy father and his happy twin sons, and there are happy families who have so many happy cousins that whenever the happy family wants to go somewhere together they have to rent an entire happy bus to do so. There are happy families who live in the happy center of certain happy cities, and there are happy families who rent a different happy hut on a different happy island every happy week. Really the only thing that all happy families have in common is happiness and perhaps a certain sagginess around the cheeks from smiling all the livelong day.
— Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid, p. 24