The nostalgia I have been cherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes.

Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.

And this is the only immortality you and i may share, my Lolita.

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

I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny.

Only talent interests me in paintings and books. Not general ideas, but the individual contribution.

And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection.