My Carmen," I said (I used to call her that sometimes) "we shall leave this raw sore town as soon as you get out of bed." "... Because, really," I continued, "there is no point in staying here." "There is no point in staying anywhere," said Lolita.

I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one's personal truth.

All colors made me happy: even gray. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs.

Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity

Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you love me thus!

I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't.

It is strange how a memory will grow into a wax figure, how the cherub grows suspiciously prettier as its frame darkens with age-strange, strange are the mishaps of memory.