Even while writing his book, he had become painfully aware how little he knew his own planet while attempting to piece together another one from jagged bits filched from deranged brains.

Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences.

There is only one school of literature - that of talent.

Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!

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

Pnin slowly walked under solemn pines. The sky was dying. He did not believe in an autocratic God. He did believe, dimly, in a democracy of ghosts. The souls of the dead, perhaps, formed committees, and these, in continuous session, attended the destinies of the quick.

My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French.