For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me.

Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives.

I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert.

All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter.

If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.

The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.

The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.