I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world’s muteness.

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

I think she always nursed a small mad hope.

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.

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

The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.