I see the awakening of consciousness as a series of spaced flashes, with the intervals between them gradually diminishing until bright blocks of perc… - Vladimir Nabokov

In and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood.

"Good by-aye!" she chanted, my American sweet immortal dead love; for she is dead and immortal if you are reading this.

We must distinguish between ‘sentimental’ and ‘sensitive’. A sentimentalist may be a perfect brute in his free time. A sensitive person is never a cruel person. Sentimental Rousseau, who could weep over a progressive idea, distributed his many natural children through various poorhouses and workhouses and never gave a hoot for them. A sentimental old maid may pamper her parrot and poison her niece. The sentimental politician may remember Mother’s Day and ruthlessly destroy a rival. Stalin loved babies. Lenin sobbed at the opera, especially at the Traviata.