“I think it is all a matter of love the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes ”

“Devices which in some curious new way imitate nature are attractive to simple minds.”

“No free man needs a God; but was I free?How fully I felt nature glued to meAnd how my childish palate loved the tasteHalf-fish, half-honey, of that golden paste!My picture book was at an early ageT...”

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

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl.”

“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.”

“Promise YourselfTo be so strong that nothingcan disturb your peace of mind.To talk health, happiness, and prosperityto every person you meet.To make all your friends feelthat there is something in ...”

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”

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

“For some reason, I kept seeing itit trembled and silkily glowed on my damp retinaa radiant child of twelve, sitting on a threshold, "pinging" pebbles at an empty can.”

“No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert Humbert-Lolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert's sense. He cares, I do not. I do not give a damn for public morals, in America or ...”

“while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.”

“The best part of a writer's biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style. [Vogue, interview, 1969]”