My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.

... my mind lay limp in an empty world.

My little cup brims with tiddles.

Imagination without knowledge leads no farther than the back yard of primitive art, the child's scrawl on the fence, and the crank's message in the market place. Art is never simple.

As to the rest, I am no more guilty of imitating 'real life' than'real life' is responsible for plagiarizing me.

All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter.

No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.