A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

I am not, and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel.

I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past.