My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions–which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way.

Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic.

His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle.

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me. I don't give a damn for the group, the community, the masses, and so forth.

Was she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture.

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.