My patient was one of those singular and unfortunate people who regard their heart (“a hollow, muscular organ,” according to the gruesome definition … - Vladimir Nabokov

I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.

Everything was too quiet to be natural. It seemed as if the silence was rising, rising — would suddenly brim over and break into laughter.

I see the awakening of consciousness as a series of spaced flashes, with the intervals between them gradually diminishing until bright blocks of perception are formed, affording memory and a slippery hold.