“Speak, Memory is strictly autobiographic. There is nothing autobiographic in Lolita.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“ Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I am convinced, however, that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. She wanted to be a nurse in some famished… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Actually she was at least in her late twenties (I never established her exact age for even her passport lied) and had… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“And I thought to myself how those fast little articles forget everything, everything, while we, old lovers, treasure every inch of their… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I'm thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art, And this is the only… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“even then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Why did I hope we would be happy abroad? A change of environment is that traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“A moment later I heard my sweetheart running up the stairs. My heart expanded with such force that it almost blotted me… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only been defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The Girl Scout’s motto is also mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such as — well, never mind what. My… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet". Where are you hiding,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“In our hallway, ablaze with welcoming lights, my Lolita peeled off her sweater, shook her gemmed hair, stretched towards me two bare… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Humbert Humbert: You know, I've missed you terribly. Lolita Haze: I haven't missed you. In fact, I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you.… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Rope-skipping, hopscotch. That old woman in black who sat down next to me on my bench, on my rack of joy (a… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“And I still have other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, in a sunset-ending street of Beardsley,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Sometimes... Come on, how often exactly, Bert? Can you recall four, five, more such occasions? Or would no human heart have survived… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“They are beautiful, heart-rendingly beautiful, those wilds, with a quality of wide-eyed, unsung, innocent surrender that my lacquered, toy-bright Swiss villages and… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Alas, I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities might be… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“What I heard was but the melody of children at play, nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert Humbert-Lolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert's sense. He… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“...under no circumstances would he [Humbert Humbert] have interfered with the innocence of a child, if there was the least risk of a row.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“Ami azt illeti, Vannak kezdtek nagyon tetszeni a fák is, a csodák is meg az Adák is.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“It isn’t possible. I cannot imagine it. Come on over here, you foolish little doe, and tell me on what day I shall die.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“Precautions to be taken in the case Of freak reincarnation: what to do On suddenly discovering that you Are now a young and vulnerable… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the "a" of the first syllable as a… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“(T)here exist friendships which develop their own inner duration, their own eons of transparent time.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
