“Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.”

“I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.”

“Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.”

“Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece”

“If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.”

“I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.”

“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.”