Цитаты из книги «Lolita / Лолита. Книга для чтения на английском языке»

I fill my life with worth-while deeds such as – well, never mind what. My duty is – to be useful. I am a friend to male animals. I obey orders. I am cheerful. That was another police car. I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought, word and deed.’

with scratches like tiny dotted lines of coagulated rubies

only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries

‘The orange blossom would have scarcely withered on the grave’, as a poet might have said. But I am no poet. I am only a very conscientious recorder

Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.

the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.

to certain bewitched travellers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as ‘nymphets’.

The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible

Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine

when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colours