Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.

A major writer combines these three - storyteller, teacher, enchanter - but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him a major writer.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently but a synonym for "unusual;" and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come more or less as a shocking surprise.

I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.