I could not kill <i>her</i>, of course, as some have thought. You see, I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. - Vladimir Nabokov

It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.

That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that one's individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution, becomes something more than an optimistic conjecture, and even more than a matter of religious faith, when we remember that only commonsense rules immortality out.

I am quite willing to admit that they are also a deception but right now I believe in them so much that I infect them with truth.

As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.