I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.

Why should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?

My principal failing as a writer is the lack of spontaneity; the nuisance of parallel thoughts, second thoughts, third thoughts; inability to express myself properly in any language unless I compose every damned sentence in my bath, in my mind, at my desk.

Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.

Burn pedants in pale fire. Accept no fashions. Be your own fashion. Do not rely on earlier triumphs. Be new at each appearance.

Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.

It is strange how a memory will grow into a wax figure, how the cherub grows suspiciously prettier as its frame darkens with age-strange, strange are the mishaps of memory.