Vladimir Nabokov

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

"Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is."

"Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring."

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

"We all have such fateful objects -- it may be a recurrent landscape in one case, a number in another -- carefully chosen by the gods to attract events of specific significance for us: here shall John …"

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plai…"

"The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and…"

"What moment in that gradual decay"