There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.

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

I don't think in any language. I think in images.

Human thought, flying on the trapezes of the star-filled universe, with mathematics stretched beneath, was like an acrobat working with a net but suddenly noticing that in reality there is no net.

The compensation for a death sentence is the knowledge of the exact hour when one is to die. A great luxury, but one that is well earned.

A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.

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.