“Other people, so I have read, treasure memorable moments in their lives: the time one climbed the Parthenon at sunrise, the summer night one met a lonely girl in Central Park and achieved with her a sweet and natural relationship, as they say in books. I too once met a girl in Central Park, but it is not much to remember. What I remember is the time John Wayne killed three men with a carbine as he was falling to the dusty street in Stagecoach, and the time the kitten found Orson Welles in the doorway in The Third Man.”

“One summer morning at sunrise a long time agoI met a little girl with a book under her arm.I asked her why she was out so early andshe answered that there were too many books andfar too little time. And there she was absolutely right.”

“No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert Humbert-Lolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert's sense. He cares, I do not. I do not give a damn for public morals, in America or elsewhere. And, anyway, cases of men in their forties marrying girls in their teens or early twenties have no bearing on Lolita whatever. Humbert was fond of "little girls"—not simply "young girls." Nymphets are girl-children, not starlets and "sex kittens." Lolita was twelve, not eighteen, when Humbert met her. You may remember that by the time she is fourteen, he refers to her as his "aging mistress.”

“I remember how Sebastian and I met in study hall, how the first time I saw him he was reading Pride and Prejudice, and how I thought that was really sexy. Of course, I would come to find later that it was the only book he'd read, like, ever, and the only reason he was reading it was to impress some college girl he'd met at a party the weekend before. That should have been a sign that maybe he and I weren't going to be the best match.”

“I want to remember it all, the good times and the bad times, the late nights, the boozing, the dancing into dawns, and all the great and not-so-great people I met and loved in those years…”

“I suppose you should her it from me that I met your mother" he smiled a litte sadly. "well. . . When I say met I mean one time I tried to kill her." "Do me a favor" Zach's voice was low and dark and dangerous. "Next time don't just try”