Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece

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

Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible

I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

Words without experience are meaningless.

We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

Let all of life be an unfettered howl.

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.

Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.

I mean, I have the feeling that something in my mind is poisoning everything else.

And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my fist was in my pocket, she was mine.

Dear Jesus, do something.

Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader.

I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.

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

I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.

A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle...

Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.

You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.

If a violin string could ache, i would be that string.

Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.

My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.

You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.

Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.

I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.

She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.

And yet I adore him. I think he's quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy, and philosophically irresponsible – and there is absolutely nobody like him.

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

Everything in the world is beautiful, but Man only recognizes beauty if he sees it either seldom or from afar. Listen, today we are gods! Our blue shadows are enormous! We move in a gigantic, joyful world!

We are most artistically caged.

Ink, a Drug.

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

Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.

The sun is a thief: she lures the sea and robs it. The moon is a thief: he steals his silvery light from the sun. The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.

...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.

...(hot, opalescent, thick tears that poets and lovers shed)...

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

The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.