As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration [for Lolita] was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.

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

Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.

do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation

Some people—and I am one of them—hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically.

I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.

I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one's personal truth.