Daniels, Leslie

“Nabokov changed my life," Max said. "I was going to be a writer, and then I read Lolita and I decided to go to law school instead. It looked easier.”

“I told them what I had discovered about Nabokov's sentences: Because the word string and the thoughts behind the words are so original, the reader's brain can't jump ahead. There is no opportunity to make assumptions, no mental leapfrogging to the end of the sentence. So the reader is suspended in the perfect moment of now. You can only experience now. The sentences celebrate the absolute instant of creation. "It takes your breath away.”