I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.

Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés.

I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.

A toothache will cost a battle, a drizzle cancel an insurrection.

I think it is all a matter of love.

There is no science without fancy and no art without fact.

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