[Nabokov's] language is made visible . . . like a veil or transparent curtain. You cannot help seeing the curtain as you peek into the intimate rooms behind.

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

There must be no worse punishment to a totalitarian nation than the withdrawal of capital.

I suppress in my prose any language which calls attention to itself.

She seemed to belong to that pagan, primitive kingdom of birds and forests where everything was infinitely abundant, wild, blooming, and royal in its perpetual decay, death, and rebirth; illicit and clashing with the human world.

Take a look at the books other people have in their homes.

As I go to sleep I remember what my father said-that one can never be sure if one will awake. The way my health is now, this is becoming more and more real.