We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.

I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and smiling faces.

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.

My God died young. Theolatry i found Degrading, and its premises, unsound. No free man needs God; but was I free?

We are most artistically caged.

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

Religion has the same relation to man's heavenly condition that mathematics has to his earthly one: both the one and the other are merely the rules of the game. Belief in God and belief in numbers: local truth and truth of location.