A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brig… - Vladimir Nabokov

I adore you. I shall never love any-
body in my life as I adore you, never and nowhere, neither in
eternity, nor in terrenity, neither in Ladore, nor on Terra, where they say our souls go. But! But, my love, my Van, I'm
physical, horribly physical

I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world’s muteness.

Although I am capable, through long dabbling in blue magic, of imitating any prose in the world (but singularly enough not verse — I am a miserable rhymester), I do not consider myself a true artist, save in one matter: I can do what only a true artist can do — pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation, wean myself abruptly from the habit of things, see the web of the world, and the warp and the weft of that web.